The Snake and the Spider
by Rain Seaker
Summary: Harry was exiled from the Wizarding World after the war. Almost destitute, he finds a job that makes full use of the skill set that he has. On the way, he meets a young spider whose skills match his own and a partnership develops.
1. Little Spider

Disclaimer: I DON'T KNOW RUSSIAN! I AM SORRY! Also, I don't own either of the properties or characters in question. Nor do I get money from them.

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**Little Spider**

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Harry sauntered down the dank alley without a thought. He knew exactly where he was going and didn't bother to hide the multitudes of weapons that covered his person. It helped that he wasn't the only one around who was dressed that way. The muggle Underground had become something of a new home for him after the war. It was really the only place that would accept him anymore.

The second Wizarding War with Voldemort had not turned out how anyone had hoped it would. After his fourth year and the tournament that reincarnated the Dark Lord, war broke out again. This time it was worse than before, so much worse. There were massacres in the street before Dumbledore could get enough of a group together to provide resistance and by that time it was so out of hand that not much could be done besides damage control.

Harry thought back to the destroyed Diagon Alley the summer before fifth year. The broken windows and empty stores. Ollivanders and Gringotts were really the only two places that were still running and that wouldn't last long. Ollivanders had lasted until Christmas when the owner and his wand collection were captured by Death Eaters. Harry didn't like thinking about the man's screams that had invaded his dreams at night after that, needless to say he didn't last long. Gringotts had lasted into sixth year before they had shut their doors completely. The goblins had tried to stay neutral, but the severity of the war had caused them to close their doors just to survive. The economy had been destroyed, but no one had much time to think of that between all of the battles. Harry imagined that it was probably open now, but so many had died in the war he didn't know what capacity it would be acting as.

The deaths were numerous in the first year after his revival. Not many muggleborns had made it past that year alive. Hermione had been the first. She died during Christmas break trying to get her parents out of the country. Harry rubbed the first tick mark on his arm absentmindedly. That battle was the first time he had killed anyone. Marcus Flint was barely initiated when he killed Hermione. He had been laughing while he did it, which was the only thing that Harry really remembered before his vision had gone red. Afterward he had stared down at Flint's disfigured corpse and pleasure had curled in his belly. He liked killing that boy and anyone that saw him that day knew it. After that, everything changed. Harry's training had kicked up several notches and he became the weapon that the Light needed to win. He didn't hold back anymore.

He stared down at the tick marks that circled his arms, so much death and all of it at his hands. The curse that caused the tick marks had been placed on him after the war was over. The so called Light side had turned their back on their weapon, disgusted by him. Harry didn't really blame them, he was disgusted by himself sometimes. The curse forced him to show any that looked upon his body just how many people he had killed. It was supposed to be a type of punishment to force him to confront the deaths he had caused. The tick marks ran up both arms and onto his chest and shoulders. He could remember how almost all of them got placed and he didn't feel any remorse for the people he had killed. Most of the people he had killed deserved everything that he had given them and more. He proudly wore sleeveless shirts when he wanted to show off, but in the muggle world most people didn't have the slightest clue what they meant which took some of the fun out of it.

The amount of people that had died in the war had been staggering. Hermione had been the first friend to go, but not the last. Dean and Seamus had died that Christmas as well. Collin and his brother made it to February. Ginny made it to march. Katie Bell, Angelina Johnson, and Cho Chang had all died in the final Quidditch match that Hogwarts had held. Fred and George Weasley had died next to their father and mother in the middle of summer after fifth year. Sirius had died right before September of that year. Dumbledore made it to the beginning of sixth year, before Snape killed him thereby cementing his loyalty to Voldemort's side. Harry didn't blame Snape, the man had saved thousands of lives by passing information to Harry secretly and spying on Voldemorts movements. Dumbledore was dead anyway do to a curse that he had accidentally touched, but had served the Light even in his death.

There were so many more that Harry didn't even know the names of. His fifth and sixth years had passed in a bloody hazy of battles and death tolls. There wasn't a day that went by where someone wasn't getting news of a death in the family. He remember after one particularly bad day McGonagall had read off a list of the dead in the middle of the Great Hall because there wasn't enough time to tell people individually. Harry had been through it all, in the middle of most of the battles that took place and all the casualties that they suffered, Harry had made sure that the Dark suffered even more.

Ron had changed after Hermione's death and had become Harry's partner during the battles. He was notorious for never having mercy on his enemies and for a time the two of them on the battlefield together were unstoppable. He had evolved into the Light's primary tactician after Dumbledore's death though and had been feared by everyone until his death in the Final Battle. In fact, the only Weasley that survived the war had been Bill, who escaped with his wife after his parents deaths. Remus had died as well in the Final Battle, leaving behind a pregnant Tonks. He had died taking Greyback's pack and the monster himself. Tonks had tried to convince Harry to become the godfather to the child, but after all of that bloodshed he had told Tonks that he wasn't really fit to be anyone's guardian.

Harry had taken on an even more notorious image in the war. He became so feared by the Death Eaters that they refused to call him by name, which was ironic justice as far as Harry was concerned seeing as they served someone who no one called by name. He had demolished camps and ripped people apart. He had let himself get consumed by the bloodlust of war and he didn't regret it. It was this bloodlust that allowed them to win the war, to beat Voldemort.

So, after all of that maybe it wasn't unreasonable that the Ministry of Magic didn't want anything to do with him. There wasn't enough wizards and witches left anymore to recover quickly. Too many of the younger generation had died to replace the lost population. The entire world was in a shambles. The other Wizarding governments finally decided to help after Harry had taken care of Voldemort for them, but even they didn't want him anywhere near their country. He had helped demolish an entire society, their fear was reasonable, Harry knew.

That didn't help Harry now though.

He hadn't had anywhere to turn after the war. The headquarters was destroyed. Hogwarts seemed hesitant to accept him at best and outright refused him at worst. Gringotts had still been shut down when Harry had been banished. Which meant that he was out of money and had no place to stay. What he did have were a set of skills that some people would pay a lot of money for, he discovered. He wasn't squeamish about killing people, he had done it too much to care. Killing for money seemed like a simple progression of that.

Which lead him to where he was now, in the middle of a dank alley walking to meet a new client. The Underground wasn't exactly what you would expect from hearing about it. The entire place worked off of connections and networks. Harry had gotten an 'invitation' off of a 'friend' after several hours of interrogation several months back. He had worked hard since then at building up a reputation and network. The place that he was headed now was somewhat of a well known marketplace. It was place where one could buy whatever sort of supplies they were looking for, short of enriched Uranium. Harry didn't like going there much, but didn't disagree that he fit there now.

At almost 18 years old he looked completely at home in one of the most lawless communities in the world.

This particular marketplace was in the middle of the slums of Moscow, Russia. Harry had been living nearby for a week and had been casing the joint to make sure he knew where the exits were in case he needed them. After the reputation he had earned he didn't believe it would be necessary, but for these types of meetings it was always better to be safe than sorry.

Harry slowed door once he reached the heavily guarded door to the end of the alley. He stared the guard in the eyes for a few seconds before the man moved to the side. Harry grinned at the man and patted him on the shoulder as he passed, ignoring the flinch that the guard gave. Harry imagined that the guard had met many people in the same business as Harry and it gave him a burst of pleasure at the fearful reaction he had gotten. He had worked hard to earn the reputation as someone not to fuck around with.

The marketplace was clean. That was really the first thing you would notice about the place. There were booths scattered about the room and alcoves placed everywhere. It was also fairly quiet. The transactions that took place here were the type that were whispered into ears so that no one else could hear. Every person in the room was carrying a weapon of some kind, it would be foolish not to. He saw shotguns and sniper rifles slung over shoulders. A few people where carrying swords strapped to their waists alongside handguns.

Harry's eyes slid over people, categorizing their faces with what they were selling. You could almost always tell what someone was selling by what they had on them at anytime. Mercenaries usually carried an armory of gun. Transporters travelled lightly, with one or two guns, but walked gracefully showing of their mastery of their bodies. Infiltrators also traveled lightly, but tended to blend into the rest of the crowd without problems. The merchants were easily spotted by their plush outfits and the cartel of thugs surrounding them. Assassins, like him, were actually the hardest to spot. They could look like anything and usually had a combination of talents that made them good at their jobs.

Harry filed the faces he passed into his mental folder of people. Occlumency had been one of the first skills he had acquired and his best one to date. It had saved his life more times than he could count and it never hurt to add to your profile of potential enemies. He was getting close to designated meeting spot when he noticed something strange.

There was a girl yelling at what were obviously hired thugs. The yelling wasn't uncommon, neither was the Russian that she was spewing at the men. It was more the fact that the person yelling at them was a girl, a female child. She looked close to 14 years old. It was unusual enough to see a woman around here, but an unattended child was almost unheard of. He slowed down at stared at them little longer.

"...Некомпетентные бабуины. Держу пари, вы даже собственные члены не найдете, настолько они малы." Harry almost sighed in disappointment. He couldn't understand the Russian girl and from the looks on the goons faces it was sure to be a good telling off.

He shook his head and continued on. He didn't have time to spy on fellow criminals, he had a meeting to get to. He smiled a little as he wandered off filing away the girl's face. She had a darkness in her that Harry could see from far away. Her hair was red, darker than Ginny's orange or his mother's strawberry, and it drew him to it. Harry tried to get rid of the thought. It wouldn't do to make attachments in the line of work that he was currently in and from the way that fight looked like it was going, he doubted she needed any help.

Harry was still smiling as he slipped into a covered alcove. The place was already occupied when he got there, exactly as expected.

"Mr. Bloom, I take it?" Harry asked the fat man sitting across from him. The man's double chins jiggled a little and sweat covered his brow. It wasn't hot in here so Harry didn't doubt it was from nervousness. There were two goons placed on either side of him with large guns that Harry was sure were supposed to scare him, they didn't.

"Mr. Basilisk..."

"Just Basilisk, if you please, I am no Mister." Harry's sinister grin covered his face. He hated working for scumbags like this, but money was money was money.

"Basilisk, I have a job for you." He pushed over a file on the table. Harry didn't look at it. He wouldn't until he was far away from this man with money in his pockets. "The man is almost untouchable and no one I have hired before has been able to do the job." He dabbed the sweat on his forehead with a handkerchief.

"You know how I work, Mr. Bloom?" Harry asked coldly. The man's nod jiggled parts of him that Harry was certain shouldn't be jiggling. The man pulled out a briefcase and slid it across the table.

"One million now and three more once the job is done." Mr. Bloom pulled back as Harry grabbed the briefcase and the folder. He was almost standing when the man interrupted him again. "Aren't you going to check the money and the folder before you accept?" Harry smiled at the man again.

"Are you suggesting that I should doubt you, Mr. Bloom? Are you saying that you are untrustworthy enough for me to check that you have given me the right amount of money? Because if that is the case then I probably shouldn't take this job anyway." Bloom shook his head franticly, the terror in his beady eyes increasing. "Besides, if you are dumb enough to try and screw me, you will be easy enough for me to kill." Harry shrugged. "I haven't met a person alive I couldn't kill when given enough incentive and I don't go into meetings with people before doing extensive background checks." The man was pressed against the back of his set terrified. "Dr. Caudswell will be easy enough to kill Mr. Bloom and I don't need a folder filled with undoubtedly misinformation to tell me that." He stood up and smiled at the man. "Now, good day, Mr. Bloom."

Harry slid out of the alcove with practiced ease. With a flick of one hand the briefcase was shrunken and placed into a pocket. He opened the folder and glanced at that the familiar image of Dr. Caudswell. Harry had done his research before his meeting and discovered that Mr. Bloom had hired three previous assassins to kill the Doctor without a single one returning.

He was reading through the folder when he was hit from the side by a rushing body. He glanced up, but the man who hit him had kept running. Curious, Harry headed over in the direction of the running man. Soon enough he came upon a crowd of people gathered around what looked like a fight. He moved closer not even noticing when the people in front of him hurried out of the way. The sight that he came upon at the center made him smile.

The girl that he had noticed yelling earlier had taken it a step further. The bodies of 4 of the goons lay groaning or still on the ground around her. She was crouched over the last man with a knife resting above his right eye. The goon was breathing heavily and looked scared. He caught the end of what she was saying.

"...Тронешь меня еще раз, и я вырежу твои глаза, отрежу твои конечности, и скормлю их тебе." The girl spat at the man underneath her. Harry took out his wand and flicked it at himself. He was sick of not being able to understand Russian and he was a wizard so he didn't have to be. His head spun for a second before his brain caught up to the translation spell.

"Please, I will not do so again just don't..." The man stopped talking with wide eyes as the knife traveled down his body to rest above his privates.

"What did I say about talking?" The girls eyes were bright as she pressed down a little and the man gave a little yelp and tears shot out of his eyes.

Harry was so focused on the man's slobbering that he almost missed the influx of men that came from another side of the circle. Harry almost groaned when he noticed the insignia on their jackets was the same as the ones one the men on the floor. No matter how good the girl was, and by the looks of it she was very good, she wouldn't be able to take down that many people. As the men stepped forward into the circle he almost groaned.

He had gotten over this before, he didn't have to help her, but when he noticed the way that their eyes scanned the girl he didn't doubt what his actions were going to be. He cursed what remained of his hero-complex and destroyed the folder he was holding. He stretched his arms a little and stepped into the ring with a sigh.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here? All you men just for one little girl, I think that is a little unfair don't you?" He ignored the whispers at spread through the crowd behind him. He heard his codename whispered franticly. It wasn't as if he hid it. The Ouroboros logo that he had claimed was spread across the back of his shirt readily.

The girl had finally turned around to see the men that were sneaking up behind her. She knocked the man on the ground unconscious and then sprung up beside him.

"What do you want?" Harry guessed she was speaking in Russian still, because her words didn't quite match up with the words he heard.

"To help." Harry replied. The girl looked at him confused and Harry shrugged. The people that worked in this place didn't really help each other out, but Harry couldn't help himself. Whenever he looked at her he saw little Ginny who died at the same age she was now and had that same fiery temper.

"Vhy?" The girl asked him in English with a thick Russian accent still confused. Harry turned to the approaching goons.

"I'll tell you after we take care of this." Harry smiled at the men and clenched his fists. "Come on boys. Let's have some fun."

Harry let the leader get close enough before he shot forward and dropped the man with a punch to the throat. He sped through the rest of the goons with the same speed and fury. Jumping from one man to another. A sweep of the legs followed by a kick to the side of the head. Twisting an arm until it broke. Bouncing a man's head against the wall. It was all great fun until he heard a cry come from behind him.

As he turned around he twisted the head of the man he had in a headlock. With a sickening crunch the man fell to the ground lifeless. The cry came from the girl on the ground. She had apparently been tripped by one of the men she was fighting. It looked like she had twisted her ankle from the limp she had as she stood up. Harry glanced back at the goons he was fighting. There was not many left, not enough to catch them if they ran. Harry went over to the girl hopping over unconscious or dead bodies until he was next to her.

"Time to blow this joint, sweetheart." Harry grinned at the confused look she shot him. He knocked one of the oncoming unconscious and patted his back. "Come on up." The girl still looked confused so Harry slowed down and tried to explain more. "It is time to go and you need some help, which I am offering to provide." Harry looked pointedly down at her twisted ankle. The girl looked annoyed.

"I can valk."

"I'm sure you can, sweetheart, just not fast enough to get away from these idiots. Now hop on would you." Harry smiled a little when the girl glared at him but grabbed the back of his shirt anyway. She tucked her legs around him and threw her arms around his neck. "Good job."

Harry barely gave a glance to the remaining thugs. He ran to a wall and jumped onto a group of boxes that seemed to populate the marketplace. With enough maneuvering and jumping he cleared the remaining crowd and ran to an exit.

He didn't stop running until he was several streets away.

"Alright, little girl, you can get down now." He motioned to her to get down. He ignored the grimace that she made as her hurt foot hit the ground. He had done his good deed for the day, there was no reason to continue carrying her.

"Vhat do you vant?" The girl asked in her broken English.

"A beer and a place to sleep for the night. Both of which I can get just fine without you. Goodbye, little girl." Harry poked her forehead and started walking away.

"You can't just leave." Good, it seemed like she was back to talking in Russian. Harry could understand her much better with the translation charm than anything she said with her horrendous accent.

"I beg to differ, little one. I can do whatever I want." Harry didn't stop even when she tried to place herself in front of him. "Look, I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I really don't want or need anything from you. I helped because I could. I understand it is a foreign concept for you to understand, but just accept the help and move on."

It was quiet for a few moments so Harry turned away again ready to forget the girl entirely.

"I can't be in debt to you." The sentence was almost whispered to him, but it had been said all the same. "I refuse to be in debt to anyone, anymore. So what do you want?" The girl was almost yelling at him in Russian now and Harry got a flashback to another little red headed girl yelling at him. He sighed.

"I suppose you wouldn't just accept me telling you that I don't require payment?" He groaned a little and rubbed his eyes when she shook her head. "Fine, fine then. I have a job currently. You help me on it, I will consider us even. Got it?" He looked at her firmly. The girl's eyes darkened and she nodded.

"Vhat do I call you?" She was back to speaking English again and Harry almost groaned.

"Look, you can talk in Russian for the remainder of the job okay? As long as you can understand me, then we are good." He waited until she nodded to continue. "You can call me Basilisk." The girl's eyes widened in surprise. "Good, it looks like my reputation precedes me. If you screw me over nothing will help you, little girl." Harry said harshly.

"My _name _is Black Widow." The girl replied in the same tone and Harry almost smiled. He was glad that she wasn't the type to get pushed around by reputations. He patted her head with a smile that grew when she knocked his hand away and glared at him. "Why don't you speak Russian?"

Harry laughed at her.

"I don't know how to speak Russian, little spider." He laughed even louder at the very confused look on her face. Once he stopped laughing her continued. "I have a place we can crash for the night. You okay with that?"

Harry didn't wait for an answer, he had already turned around and started walking again. The girl would follow him out of her obsession to pay back her debt or she wouldn't. Harry didn't really care either way.

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AN: I WILL ONCE AGAIN REITERATE THAT I DON'T KNOW RUSSIAN! I AM SO SORRY FOR ALMOST DEFINITELY BUTCHERING YOUR LANGUAGE. Here is what I hoped I was writing, you can thank google translate if it's wrong:

...Некомпетентные бабуины. Держу пари, вы даже собственные члены не найдете, настолько они малы. = ...incompetent baboons. I bet you can't even find your own dicks they are so small.

Тронешь меня еще раз, и я вырежу твои глаза, отрежу твои конечности, и скормлю их тебе. = touch me again and I will carve out your eyes, cut off your extremities, and feed them to you.

EDIT: Some glorious person just corrected my sentences and I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart.

Okay, if you speak Russian and you don't completely hate me I would love for you to correct my probably terrible sentences. I will also probably need help in the future if you are interested in betaing.

Now, on to the fun part. This is quite possibly the next story that I am thinking of doing. If you have any interest in me continuing this story please tell me so via that nice little comment box below this. I love the changes that FF has made to the comment section. I will be interested to see if anyone wants this to continue.

Thank you for reading,

~Rain


	2. Dr Caudswell

Disclaimer: I do not own nor plot deaths with the Avengers or Harry Potter.

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**Dr. Henry Caudswell**

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"Вставай!" The harsh Russian words along with hands pushing him out of bed woke Harry from his sleep.

A second later he was crouching over the still form of a teenage girl a dagger on her throat and her hands around his neck. It took Harry a minute to catch up to his body and when he did he scrambled from on top of the girl. He shook his head and rubbed his temples trying to figure out what a red headed teenager was doing in his room.

"Ты уже проснулся?" The girl spoke up again and Harry stared at her blandly. "Ты уже проснулся?" She repeated as she gestured to the bed.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" Harry asked, still trying to wake up.

The girl glared and her hand swung forward, obviously trying to slap him. Harry caught her wrist and twisted it before it hit its mark. The girl grimaced and twisted her body with the wrist trying to lessen the pressure. Harry stared at her blankly for another minute before he remembered.

"Oh, that's right. You were that girl I saved from getting killed yesterday." Harry smiled as her glare intensified, but released her hand.

"Я бы прекрасно справилась с этим и сама." The girl said snidely while rubbing the aching wrist. Harry didn't know exactly what she said, but he got the gist of it.

"Oh yeah and I could have flown to the moon on my broomstick. You should learn to accept when you are beat." Harry stood up and ran his fingers through his hair. "Stay here, pipsqueak, I'm going to go clean up."

Harry ignored her angry form and headed to the bathroom. Once he got there he shut the door and took out his wand. The translation spell must have died sometime in the middle of the night, which was good information to know. He waved his wand over his head and leaned against his sink heavily once the dizzy spell hit. He raised his head to glance into the dirty mirror. Why on Earth had he decided to help that girl last night? There was no reason he should have done so and might have pissed of potential clients.

He turned on the rusty faucet of the shower. It was too late to go back and change things now and despite everything else, he kind of liked the girl's spirit. He jumped into the too hot shower and tried to forget about the red head. His mind turned onto more important topics, like his current target. Dr. Caudswell was an interesting character in private sector research nowadays which meant that a lot of big money would be trying to keep him safe.

After about ten minutes of over thinking the problem and letting yesterday's grime slide off his body he stepped out of the steaming shower and pulled a towel off the rack.

"The shower's hot if you need it, little spider." Harry yelled out the door before picking up his clothes, slinging the towel around his waist, and stepping into the cheap motel room. He moved to his suitcase ignoring the curious eyes that followed him. "Knowing exactly how much this hotel room costs, I don't think it will last that way for long." He turned toward her, but the girls eyes were moving over the rest of his body. Harry got the feeling that she was more trying to count the tick marks than she was checking out his muscles. "Oi! You listening over there? Go get cleaned up." He pointed to the shower.

The girl's eyes flicked to his and she nodded before disappearing into the steamy bathroom. Harry shook his head and dropped his towel, picking up new clothes to put on. It was a bad decision to pick up this girl, he just knew it. After he had put on a new sleeveless shirt and a pair of his signature snakeskin pants he picked up his discarded pants and pulled out the shrunken briefcase. With a casual flick of his hand the case was back to its regular size and he was putting it on the table.

No matter what posturing he had done in front of the fat Bloom, there was no way that he wasn't going to count the money that he had received from his bastard of a client. He was still lifting stacks of bills out of the case when the girl exited the bathroom. You could only tell that she had taken a shower by the water that dripped from her hair. Her eyes found the money stacks and stayed there.

"Well, don't you look sparkling this morning, princess." Harry smiled at her and continued unpacking the money from the case. The girl's eyes didn't waver from their spot on the money, it was a hungry stare that Harry knew well. "Now, now, little spider, don't get ahead of yourself. Some of this might even be yours if you do your job right. Besides, you wouldn't be able to take it from me anyway. You don't have the skills." The girls eyes pulled away from the money stacks to Harry's amused gaze, he imaged she had to forcefully pull them away.

"You don't know me, Basilisk. You have no idea what my abilities are." The girl told him emotionlessly. Her mouth moved in ways that didn't follow her words and Harry was reassured that the translation spell was working properly.

"I know enough to know that I could kill you if I needed to. So, no stealing, alright?" Harry asked in an amused tone. "Now, sit down and help me count." He pushed a few stacks over to the empty chair at the table and motioned for her to sit. She looked at him suspiciously. "Look, you aren't going to steal it unless you are incredibly stupid and if you are that dumb I don't want to be working with you anyway, and I can just kill you. Now, I know you can't be that dumb, so sit down and help me count."

The girl sat cautiously and grabbed a stack to start counting. She grabbed at it much like a starving person grabbed at food and Harry grinned at her.

Once Harry got to the end of his stacks he wrote down the total amount and turned to her. She was already staring at time when he did.

"I got 460,000€."

Harry smiled at here and nodded. He picked up the stacks and started placing them back into the case.

"Perfect. I need to go drop this off and then we can talk about the job." He closed up the suitcase and headed to the door. "I will be back in thirty minutes, feel free to use this room however you want. Play with Barbies or whatever it is that you kids get up to nowadays." He was almost out of the door before she spoke up.

"Are you actually going to come back or will you just leave me here?" Her voice was harsh. Harry turned with a grin.

"You know I didn't even think about doing that. I suppose I could, after all it isn't really like I need you hanging around." He paused a moment in mock thought with a finger on his chin. The girl bristled - Harry grinned at it. He shrugged. "Well, I guess you could be useful, so no, I won't just leave you here." He almost turned back to the door before spotting his suitcase. "There you go." He pointed to it. "All the insurance you need that I will be back here before you know it."

He was still smiling as he walked out the door.

* * *

Harry was whistling as he walked back into the apartment to the glares of its current occupant.

"Did you miss me, little spider?" Harry asked with a smile and walked over to the table. The glare of the girl would have phased him if he hadn't lived with Snape for seven years.

"Vhere did you go?" She snarled at him.

"Didn't I already tell you to speak Russian, hearing you speak English is like listening to a car crash." He ignored her and sat down with a thump. He threw his legs onto the table and leaned back in his chair on the two back legs.

"Don't lie to me to inbred idiot. I followed you outside." She stomped closer to him.

"No, really?" Harry gasped with mock surprise. "I had absolutely no idea. You need to learn to trust a little, sweetheart."

Harry wasn't surprised when she stepped forward, expecting a slap. What he didn't expect was for her to launch herself over the table and tackle his body to the ground. Harry almost groaned as she squatted over him, very pleased with herself.

"You disappeared into thin air. How did you do that? I have never lost a target in my life and you vanished. It is not possible." She spat at him obviously mad.

"Now, now, don't be like that. I can't have you following me everywhere, sweetheart. A guys got to have his secrets." Harry smiled and with a shift of his weight and a twist of his body the girl was underneath him, her wrists clenched in one of his hands. "I think we are getting a little too used to this position if you ask me. I'm not into prepubescent boys." He kept smiling through her intensified glare, but stood up. "Now, if you have wasted enough time lying around, it is time to get to the target. And..." He spun around dramatically and with a move that only a wizard could pull off, a CD appeared in his hand, "I have a present for you."

The girl's emotionless mask slipped back into place as she sprung up from the floor. It only took a few seconds for her to take the CD from Harry's hand and sit back down at the table.

"What is it?" She looked at the thing curiously turning it over in her hands.

"That my dear is a CD that took me a very long time to acquire, almost..." He glanced down at his watch. "thirty minutes give or take a few." He ignored the familiar glare she gave him. Harry pulled the CD player from his pocket and handed it to her. "That is what you use to play it."

She looked at him incredulously. "I know what it is, snake. I was asking what it has to do with me."

"Well, little spider, I got sick of listening to you butcher the English language so I decided to give you a gift." He pointed to the CD. "That will teach you how to speak without a noticeable accent. I think the teacher is American so maybe you will get one of those." He shrugged. "Either way, it is better than the babble that you are currently spitting out." Harry pulled out a large folder with a picture attached.

"Who is the target?" She asked while putting down the CD and pulling the folder to herself.

"That, is Dr. Henry Caudswell." Harry pointed to the picture on the front. The older gentleman had large glasses that covered half of his face and made his eyes look too big. His grey hair didn't look like it had been washed in awhile, much like the rest of him. "He is a big name in private sector research and development. He is currently being funded by these companies." Harry opened the packet to a long list of names. "It is mostly pharmaceutical companies at the moment, but what interests me is a few weapon manufacturers that I see on there." He flipped through it again and showed her a second picture of a familiar fat man. "This is the man who wants him dead. He calls himself Mr. Bloom. He owns an acquisitions company that tried to buy out Dr. Caudswells company and failed. He has decided that since he can't monopolize Dr. Caudswell's research than no one should have it."

The girl looked at him strangely. "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Nothing really. We are still going to kill Dr. Caudswell and make tons of cash. However, you never leave yourself in a position of not knowing who you are working for. Bloom is too much of a pissed faced coward to ever betray me, but I never leave that sort of thing to chance. I am telling you because if you see this man appear anywhere, I need you to tell me at once. Understood?" The teenager nodded and looked back at the folder.

"So, what is the plan?"

"It should be rather simple, all things considered." He pulled out a piece of paper with dates and times. "This is Dr. Caudswell's schedule. The place we get him is while traveling home. It is the easiest place to catch anyone off guard. Of course, it isn't going to be as easy as all that. He is constantly surrounded by guards. He will be in a car following a car full of bodyguards, that is also packed to the brink with thugs ready to protect him." Harry showed her the images that he had taken of the caravan that traveled everywhere with the man.

"Then how will we get him?" She asked questioningly after a few seconds looking over the papers.

"That is where you come in, sweetheart. Meet Dr. Caudswell's daughter." Harry flipped through the folder to find another picture, this time of a young blond girl about the same age as Widow. "Melinda Caudswell is currently away at school in Germany and not our problem. However, since you are about the same age as her...well, people can be very sentimental. We do a basic trap set up. We stage an accident and pretend to be the first on the scene, when Dr. Caudswell's cars approach..."

The girl nodded.

"Wouldn't it be easier just to pretend to be in the accident. It draws more sympathy than just being the first on the scene." She said emotionlessly, flipping through the folder.

"Sure, but do you actually want to be injured enough to pull the story off? These goons are some of the best money can buy. It is easier to pull off emotions than injuries and if you misstep once with a pretend injury they are going to know something is up." She stared and then nodded.

"How will we kill him?" She asked.

"That's the fun part." He passed a small vile of viscous liquid toward her. "That is venom, very deadly. One of my signatures actually. It has been diluted though, it will take close to an hour to work its way through the bloodstream enough to kill. We will both have a needle with a bit of this on it, whoever gets close enough sticks him and we slip away. I will be far away when the actual death occurs, as will you. Understand?" He leaned back in his chair and watched the thoughts fly through her head. After several moments she leaned back as well and nodded.

"It seems fine."

"Good." He stood up suddenly. "Well then, there is work to be done. I will get the corpse and set up the accident, you get outfits prepared that will let us fit in and appear harmless. Got it?" He moved to his bag and pulled out two hundred euro bills to hand to her. "Don't spend it all in one place." He smiled and patted her on the head. She growled and swatted his hand away. He glanced at his watch. "We meet on this road way at 1930 hours, got it?" He pointed to a spot on a map. "I should have everything set up by then. The road is usually pretty abandoned which is why it is used by them." He handed her the folder. "Memorize this. Know the plan like the back of your hand and everything will turn out just fine."

"I don't screw up." She told him calmly, but tucked the folder under her arm anyway. She had composed herself emotionless again and Harry almost felt a pang of loss.

"See you later then, little spider." He grinned and turned. As he opened the door he spared a glance backwards to stare at her. The girl had turned away from him, probably thinking that he had already left. With one hand she touched the CD and player lightly, almost caressed it. He turned away from the sight without another thought.

* * *

Harry leaned against the side of the only not burning car calmly. Staring at the red headed teenager in front of him that looked completely different from how she had a couple of hours ago.

The girl had turned up in a private school uniform that was already covered in soot. Harry had been more than surprised when she handed him a guys uniform from the same school. He had held it up questioningly to get a simple response.

"You are young enough to pull off the act of brother and sister." She pointed to her ruined clothes. "We were driving back from school to our parents house in the country when we ran across the accident." She pointed to the fiery wreck. "We stopped and tried to look for survivors, but only found the one dead guy." She pointed to the cadaver he had stolen from the morgue. "We had no way to contact the police and decided to wait for someone else to come along and help."

"Sounds fine to me." He said without caring. He had been slightly proud of the accident he had been able to fake though. With a cadaver that had died in a car accident stolen from the morgue all he had to do was find some wrecked cars. The first had been set on fire completely - to hide the fact that there was no bodies in it - and the second had the engine burst into flames. It was a rather spectacular wreck if he did say so himself, but Widow had barely spared a glance at if before telling him to change into his new clothes. Their old clothes had been stowed away behind the tree line along with spare weapons if the entire plan went to shit. A working car that he was leaning against was in fairly good quality and parked a little ways away. It was the car that they would be leaving in and the car that their covers drove.

He heard the growl of approaching cars and stood up straighter.

"They are coming. Are you prepared?" He asked hurriedly. He stared at the soot on her face and her messy hair and knew that he looked close to the same if not worse.

"I'm fine." She said emotionlessly and turned to face the oncoming cars. It wasn't good enough, he thought quickly.

The cars were almost around the corner.

Harry growled and spun her around.

"Cry." He told her roughly.

"What?" She asked confused.

"Cry, you silly girl. You are a private school student who has just seen a dead body and a car accident for the first time." He shook her a little. "Now, cry."

She nodded and lowered her head for a second. When her face turned back to his it was like he was staring at a completely different person. The girl's eyes were leaking tears and the shocked innocent look in her eyes was enough to give Harry pause. He stared for a second and then pushed her back toward the oncoming cars.

"Good enough." He said gruffly, turning away from the sight. There was something very unsettling about that look on her face. He knelt on the ground next to the dead body and pretended to check the pulse.

"STOP! PLEASE, STOP!" The girl was screaming in a two tone way that Harry identified as the Russian translation spell working. He knew that she was undoubtedly waving her arms frantically and pulling the full school girl act because after a second of car engines he could hear the screech of brakes and tires. "THANK YOU. PLEASE, PLEASE. YOU HAVE TO COME. I think someone is hurt."

A car door was opening and Harry turned around to look. Two black SUVs were stopped in the middle of the lane. The passenger door of the first car opened to let out a burly Russian in full black combat gear. Harry almost rolled his eyes, but refrained himself.

"What happened?" The Russian asked Widow roughly, staring at the scene in front of him.

"Please, I...I think..." Her voice broke. "I think he might be dead. I...we...my brother and I were coming home from school." She sobbed a little into her hands.

The Russian looked very uncomfortable, but nodded at her and made his way over to Harry. Once he got close enough to the accident he turned to back to the car and waved for a hand. As the first car unloaded a couple more men the first goon got close enough to kneel door next to Harry.

"What happened?" The man placed his hand on the neck of the dead man to check for a pulse. Harry looked up in surprise.

The man spoke Russian, which made since because they were in Russia after all, but somehow it had slipped Harry's mind during the planning phase that he didn't actually know how to speak Russian. He turned to look at Widow sharply.

"My brother is mute." Was the shakily shouted reply that he received. He almost sighed in relief.

The Russian looked at him in surprise, but when a rush of more goons came over he pushed Harry away.

"Go stand over there." He pointed to where their working car was parked. The other goons came to stand around the dead body and start muttering. Several minutes passed in this fashion of Russians looking between the car wreck, the dead body, and the caravan of SUVs while muttering gruffly. It wasn't until the second car opened its doors that anything changed.

"What is the hold up?" Dr. Caudswell stepped out of his car obviously agitated and Harry wanted to smile. Sometimes it was just too easy to kill men with overblown egos. Harry spared a glance to Widow, she was the closest so she would have to do the deed. His eyes moved away quickly from the sight. Widow was trembling in a way that was familiar to Harry, but ultimately unnatural on her. It was the shaking of someone about to go into shock and Harry resisted the urge to throw a blanket around her. "What is this?" The doctor apparently caught sight of Widow.

"Sir, get back in the car." The Russian goon that came out of the second car was the biggest one yet and he looked very upset at his charge. "It isn't safe yet."

"Sir, please...it was just..." Widow stopped as another sob wracked her frame.

"There, there, what's wrong?" Caudswell was apparently very sentimental because as he got closer to Widow he put his arm around her carefully. He completely ignored the growling of his bodyguards. Harry smiled when he noticed the small slip of hand that Widow gave when she hugged him back. The job was done, now they just had to get out of there.

"I...I..." She sobbed into his jacket as he made hushing noises.

The large Russian from the back car approached the two and grabbed the arm of Dr. Caudswell.

"Sir, I really think you should get back in the car." He grabbed the doctor's arm roughly and started pulling. Caudswell gave a sigh, but seemed to give in.

"Alright, come on then." He kept his arm around Widow as he headed to the car and Harry started screaming in his head. He had barely taken a step in their direction when a loud shout came from behind him.

He turned to the goons by the burning wreck quickly.

"BOY! COME HERE AND HELP!" Five of the burly goons had gathered around the back of the car that wasn't on completely fire, they looked like they were getting ready to push. Harry frantically turned between the image of Widow heading to the car with the target and the burning wreck. "BOY!" He made the decision quickly turned to the goons huddled around the car. His body fighting with every step he took away from Widow. "Great. Help push."

The burly Russian pushed him to one side of the back of the car, but Harry didn't pay much attention. His eyes were glued to the image of Widow being lead back to the car with Caudswell. The voices in his head were all screaming loudly and he didn't notice when his lips started moving to form words that he couldn't say aloud.

"Don't get in the car with them. Come on you moron, have some self preservation skills, don't get into that bloody car. Don't get into the car with them. Don't...fuck." The last word was said frantically under his breath as his whole body tensed.

He was getting ready to fight his way through the goons to get to Widow, but with one final groan from the group of Russians next to him the car he was leaning on moved and threw him off balance.

He regained it quickly, and turned back to the SUVs. This had gone on too long. His whole body was tensed prepared for any attack that came him way. He ignored the looks that the Russian's were sending his way and headed to the second car.

He got almost 5 feet away before the large Russian that had gotten back in with Caudswell stepped out of the passenger side and pointed a gun at his forehead. Harry paused for a second and evaluated the situation. He could get to Widow quickly if he disarmed the man, the man would reach for his lost weapon and put him in reach of...

"Brother. I am fine." Widow got out of the back of the car shakily. "Please, let's just go home." She turned back to the car and spoke to the man in the backseat. "It was nice to meet you. I am sorry...about the accident." She was still a little shaky as she spoke, but left the danger zone of the car and stepped back over to Harry. Every step that she took toward him loosened the tension in his body. When she got close enough to touch his arm Harry sighed and fell back into character.

The large Russian looked between the two of them curiously, but nevertheless nodded.

"Go home, now. We will take care of this." He waved at the still burning wreck, but tucked his gun away into a holster.

"Thank you sir, thank you." Widow grabbed his arm and pulled him back over to their car. Harry lead her to the passenger side and made sure she was buckled in before he got into the driver's seat and turned on the car. He backed up quickly and turned back down the road that they came from, the entire time he kept his gaze on the rearview mirror.

They were several minutes down the road and completely out of view from the SUVs when Widow spoke up.

"Well, that went great except for the clothes we left at the scene." Harry spared a glance at her to see her wiping the soot and tears from her face, the emotionless mask back in place. Harry's hands clenched on the wheel.

"You don't do that." He growled at her, but kept his eyes on the road. She looked at him surprised.

"Don't do what?"

"You don't do what you just did." He spat angrily. "You don't get into an unknown car full of hostiles alone. You don't do that to m...to your partner." He glared at her. "You don't do that."

"Wow, didn't know you cared." She said it so off the cuff, so sarcastically that Harry wanted to slam on the breaks. He didn't. He sped up.

It took them almost thirty minutes to get back to the city, but when they did Harry pulled into the first car park he saw. He sped up several floors and didn't slow down even when he saw the slightly scared look cross Widow's face. He pulled into an empty spot and slammed on the breaks. He got out of the car roughly and slammed the door shut behind him. He moved over half wall in front of the car and stared at the cityscape beyond.

"That's it. We are done. Paid in full." He almost growled, but didn't look back at the car. He didn't turn when he heard the door opening or closing. He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. This wasn't supposed to happen. You don't get attached to partners. You don't get attached to anyone.

"Hey." The voice was soft as was the hand that touched his arms. He glanced over his shoulder at her.

"What is it now? I already told you the debt was paid, right? That's your cue to run like the wind. Get as far away from here as possible." Far away from me, went unsaid.

The girl stood next to him and leaned against the half wall as well. Several minutes passed in comfortable silence.

"There are rumors about you. Did you know that?" The girl asked calmly, not even looking in Harry's direction.

"Of course, I knew that little spider. There have been rumors about me since I was a year old. It's not news." Harry said while looking out at the city skyline.

"They say that if you get close enough to see Basilisk's eyes, then you are already dead." Harry scoffed at that.

"I suppose I have venomous fangs as well?" He turned to look at her dark red curly hair.

"I don't know about that, but I do know that you are..." She paused looking for the right word. "Good, at your job I mean. The best I have ever met, besides me, of course." She turned to look at him. "We...we work well together." She spun her face back around quickly, letting her hair hide it, but not before Harry caught sight of a small blush. Harry couldn't help but smile at her.

"Oh really, the great Black Widow has come seeking my humble help? Whatever should I say?" He paused for mock thought, but Widow pushed him a little.

"I am being serious. I need a partner and I can't trust those incompetent hired baboons anymore."

"Oh, I am better than a baboon now?" Harry asked.

"Slightly better, more of a gorilla than anything else." She said with a straight emotionless face. "So what do you say." The question was serious, as was her face.

Harry paused in thought for a few minutes. It was a serious thought. He didn't expect to ever have a partner again, not after Ron and Hermione. He looked upon the shorter female. There was something about this girl that drew him to her.

"You know, if I say yes, we will actually have to tell each other our names." He said absentmindedly still considering.

"I'm Natasha." The girl said it quickly, without thought. She didn't take her eyes away from the city sky even when Harry turned to her in shock. "That's my name, Natasha."

It was then that Harry knew there was only one possible answer he would have to her question.

"I'm Harry." He held out his hand to her and smiled when she looked at him in shock. It took her a few moments, but she grabbed his hand and shook. "I have a feeling this is going to be the beginning of a beautiful partnership."

* * *

AN: Hello there. I have to give thanks to my glorious Russian translator Sehmet.

Translations:

"Вставай!" - Get up!

"Ты уже проснулся?" - Are you awake yet? (Thanks to Nikeya for the updated translation)

"Я бы прекрасно справилась с этим и сама." - I could have handled it just fine without you.

Thanks for reading and if you liked it enough to want more please shoot me a review to tell me so.

~Rain


	3. Walter Malville

Disclaimer: I don't own/stab TA's to death with the Avengers or Harry Potter.

* * *

**Walter Malville**

* * *

"You're holding it wrong." Harry's voice shot through the silent room like shrapnel from a bomb. Natasha turned quickly, surprised. The dagger that she had been practicing with flew from her hand before she could stop it. The thrown dagger was off a little, more to his right than his heart was which was one of the reasons it was so easy for Harry to catch.

"I didn't hear you come in." Natasha said without the tiniest bit of remorse at the thrown dagger. She probably thought that if he wasn't good enough to catch a miss thrown dagger than he wasn't good enough to be her partner.

Harry scoffed at her.

"Do you always thrown daggers at people who walk in the door?" Harry asked calmly while handing the dagger back to her.

"When they are purposefully being sneaky, then, yes." Natasha said without pause. She looked down at the dagger in her hand and back to Harry. "I wasn't..."

"Holding it wrong? Yes, you were." Harry said nonchalantly.

He knew more than his fair share about holding and throwing knives. Aunt Petunia had expected nothing less when she placed a knife in his hand at age five to help chop vegetables, unconcerned for his safety. The knowledge of how to throw knives and daggers respectfully came a bit later. Seamus had been an intolerable show-off when he was young, but had been very skilled with a dagger. A skill which made him infamous until his death, well that and his tendency to turn water into rum.

"No, I wasn't." She said very insistently. Which was unsurprising because if you lived your entire life was dependant on your ability to throw a knife well, then you were going to be a bit hesitant when someone informed you that you had been doing it wrong all those years.

"Yes, you were. Look..." Harry took a step forward, but stopped when Natasha took a step away from him. "I'm not going to hurt you. I was just going to show you why it was wrong. The way that you are holding it know makes it too easy to remove from your hand." Harry motioned a little with his hand before sighing and taking out a dagger of his own. "I'll show you alright."

The dagger that hit his hand was positioned instinctively. The motion had been drilled into his brain for years. He held it out to show it to her, keeping the blade pointed away. He opened and clenched a few times to really show her.

"It has been working for me just fine." She said stubbornly.

"That's because you have fighting people that didn't know any better. Once you actually fight a skilled opponent they are going to pluck it from your hands like candy." He stepped forward a little to test to see if she would back up again, she didn't. "Let me show she what I mean." His hand shot forward quickly, putting Natasha on the defensive. She took a few swipes that Harry generally ignored and when he got close enough a quick grab to her hand a pull was all it took for the dagger to slip right out of her fingers.

Natasha stared in surprised dismay at her dagger in Harry's hand. "How did you do that?"

"I told you. The way you were holding it was wrong. Here, take it back." Harry flipped it over in his hand and gave it back to her hilt first. When she took it Harry stepped closer. He covered her hand with his and moved her grip on the hilt. "Hold it like this, okay? It will take a little while to get used to it, but practice makes perfect, and everything."

Harry backed away quickly and headed to the table. He sat down in a chair and kicked his feet up. He continued ignoring Natasha and took out a folder from his jacket. Natasha stared at the dagger in shock for a second before morphing her face to a neutral expression.

"Thank you." The words that came from Natasha's mouth were a shock to Harry, but those didn't bother Harry as much as the tone it was said in. There was something very off about the way that it was said that put Harry on edge. He narrowed his eyes at Natasha.

"It was no problem. We are working together. It might be my life on the line based on your ability to hold the dagger correctly." It was logical when he said it like that. It wasn't because he wanted to help her, it was because his life depended on her knowledge.

"No, really, thank you." Harry looked at her closer now. There was something wrong, very wrong.

Natasha took a step toward Harry, but it didn't look right. Natasha's normal stride was efficiently graceful, no unnecessary movement, professional. The way that she was walking toward Harry was unnatural. There was a small sway to her hips. The movement was slower and sensual. It looked very wrong.

"Natasha, stop it." Harry said suspiciously.

"Stop what, Harry?" She took a step closer, swaying. "You gave me something. Shouldn't I return the favor." She was close enough to touch now. Her clothing was black as normal, but loose on her frame, no doubt hiding weapons. She leaned down to get closer to Harry and showed more skin that normal. Her body was still a girl's though. She was fourteen, barely into puberty, and already was trying to seduce him. What sort of people had she been around to give her the impression that he would be even the slightest bit interested.

"Natasha. Stop it." Harry almost growled at her. His voice held barely disguised anger and his eyes were alight.

"Why? I need to repay my debt." She stepped closer now, her hands on the arms of his chair.

Harry didn't let it go any further than that. With a snarl he tugged her forward onto his lap. He twisted the dagger out of her hand forcefully - despite the correct grip - and pushed her onto the table. Her back hit the tabletop and he leaned over her. With a quick motion he stabbed the dagger next to her head.

"We need new ground rules, sweetheart." He snarled close to her scared face and then stepped back, putting distance between them. He let her compose herself for a few minutes before sitting back in the chair, motioning for her to take the other one. "I was going to tell you about our new job, but I think after that little display we need to have a discussion."

"What are your rules?" Natasha's voice was back to the same emotionless tone it always held and Harry let out a sigh of relief.

"Rule one, no trying to manipulate your partner." Harry looked very pointedly at her. She opened her mouth to protest, but Harry cut her off. "I knew exactly what you were trying to do from the start. Natasha you are one of the most skilled actresses I've ever come in contact with, but seeing as I've seen your true self without any masks, the effect is sort of ruined on me. You could get anyone to do anything if you really put your mind to it, but I am not your enemy. Natasha, if you use your skills on me, then this ends. Stick to manipulating the targets, not me." Harry said firmly. Natasha's grin face nodded.

"Fine then, if we are making rules." She sat up straighter in her chair, their earlier fight forgotten. "Rule two, no sneaking up on me or spying. If I can't use my skills on you, then you can't use your skills on me." She looked pointedly at Harry. "That includes your vanishing act."

Harry smiled and nodded. Natasha had no idea what his magic could do and he didn't really ever think of telling her, but the longer this partnership went on the more careful he would have to become. Natasha was observant and keeping the secret of his magic from her would be difficult, especially since she already had suspicions.

"Rule three, no running into possibly deadly situations without backup. I refuse to have another car incident. If you can help it, you don't walk into the middle of a group of bad guys and follow them." He told her steadily.

He had reacted fiercely to her first almost kidnapping and refused to be forced into that kind of action again. Harry didn't need another person to protect, but it seemed like that was the only reason he had said yes to her offer of partnership. He thought he had gotten rid of that part of him entirely during the war and it was distressing to see it again. He still didn't know why he decided to become her partner, but something in him wanted companionship and refused to die no matter what Harry did to it.

"Rule four, no presents." The voice was soft, but still emotionless. Harry focused his gaze back on Natasha and stopped day dreaming. Natasha's gaze, however, was focused on the table, nowhere close to Harry.

"Why?"

"Presents suggest an emotional attachment. We are partners in a business. Our relationship is strictly professional. There is no need to form attachments between us." The tone was emotionlessly professional, a Natasha signature.

"Does this have something to do with the CD and player that I got you?" Harry asked curiously. Natasha remained silent and continued looking at the table. The silence went on for a moment before Harry continued talking. It wasn't really any of his business anyway. "On that note. Rule five, no sexual intercourse."

Natasha looked up in surprise. "What?"

"It is a similar sentiment to rule four. Emotional attachments and all that." Harry said, waving a hand nonchalantly. Natasha looked at him confused so Harry continued. "Look, you are cute. I am not going to deny that. However, you are fourteen years old. When I look at you I see dolls and pink bows. I don't see anything that attracts me though. You aren't sexy or hot, you are a cute girl. So, whatever you thought was going to happen when you started that little seduction routine of yours, is off the table completely. Understand?"

Natasha nodded, but still seemed slightly bewildered. Harry had to wonder if it wasn't because she hadn't ever met anyone before that didn't want her body. The thought was followed by a surge of rage that he had to push down. He ignored the thought and the rage and continued to stare at the girl.

"Seems reasonable." Natasha said slowly. She was obviously still considering the rules, but after awhile she nodded to Harry.

"Great, the rules are set. Now, we can get to our job." Harry threw the folder onto the table in front of Natasha. "Walter Malville worked as an intern for Dr. Caudswell. He is the closest thing that the doctor had to a successor and Bloom wants him gone as well. Since we did so well on the last job, this is our new one."

Natasha nodded and picked up the folder. The picture inside was of a twenty-something year old man with brown hair and lazy eyes. Her eyes flickered over the pages. It was only once she had finished when she turned back to him with questioning eyes.

"This man isn't in Russia." It was a statement that was phrased as a question.

"No, he isn't. In fact, he is currently in America working on his doctorate degree. He has a job at Columbia University as a teacher's assistant." He flipped through the folder until he came across the pictures of the campus and the man teaching a class. "I figure this is a good in. It doesn't have to be complicated. The man isn't protected at all yet. The research company is still in a mess after Caudswell's death and won't start looking for a replacement for a little while yet."

"We are going to America?" There was a slight bit of excitement in Natasha's tone.

"Have you ever been there before?"

"No. I've never been outside of Russia before." She responded steadily. She had a bit of hesitation in her voice, almost as if she expected Harry to leave her now that he knew she had never been out of the country.

"Well, that's good." Natasha looked at Harry surprised. "The reason I decided to take the job was because it was in America. We have enough money to go there now without too much hassle and you need to have experience in other countries. Accents and languages are one tool that I could do with having and that you need to learn. It will give you a chance to practice fitting in to other cultures."

"How will we get there?"

"Bloom is footing the travel expenses so all we have to do is get paperwork and I've got a guy for that."

"I want to come." Natasha told Harry stiffly. She obviously didn't want to be left behind again.

"Fine, I was planning on taking you anyway. Rolo is going to need your picture to make proper identification papers. I was planning on doing it now, if that isn't a problem." He told her and she nodded in response. Harry picked out his jacket from the bed and threw it on. "What are you waiting for?"

Natasha scurried over to her bed and tugged on her winter jacket, the first purchase she had made with her cut of the money from the Caudswell job. She also pulled the dagger out of the tabletop and stowed it away. Harry was waiting for her by the door once she was ready.

The walk through the slums of Moscow was cold, dark, and unpleasant. They had walked for a few blocks before Harry pulled Natasha into an alleyway. He motioned for her to follow him and let her to a section of wall that looked slightly different from the rest. Harry pulled on stone out of place and pressed a button inside. A section of the wall popped out and opened, showing the two a small alcove filled with clothing, weapons, money, papers, and extraneous items.

"What is this?" Natasha asked completely shocked.

"This is one of safety deposit boxes." Harry told her while picking up a stack of Euros. "Once I started traveling around for work I realized that I would never truly know where I was going to end up. I leave these little alcoves in every city that I go to. It provides an emergency backup to anything I could possibly need. I told you about it because eventually I am going to start putting some stuff away for you as well. You never know when you are going to need a new set of clothes to change into or identification papers." Harry held up the stone and made her look at it. Marked on the surface was an Ouroboros. "There is another marking on a stone near the street. That's how I can tell where to go and which stone to dig out."

Natasha swallowed her surprise and reaffixed her emotionless mask.

"Aren't you afraid that someone else will see it and steal the stuff. It is dangerous to leave weapons lying around where anyone can get to them." Harry laughed a little.

"No one knows how to find them except for the people that I've told." The entire network of alcoves was under the best set of wards he could design. The entire thing was very clever. The Fidelius charm covered the knowledge of the alcoves, which in turn meant every alcove was covered by the exact same Fidelius charm, so that if he wanted someone to know about the network he didn't have to tell them about every alcove individually. However, if he only wanted to tell someone about one of the alcoves he could take them to it and they would remember without knowing about the rest of the system. It also had a built in detector so that if he needed something in an alcove in a hurry it would guide him to it. He was quite proud of it really. "Which is just you currently. You won't tell anyone, will you?" Harry continued. The question was innocent, but there was an edge to Harry's voice, almost a threat.

"Of course not, why give away advantages." She said with a scoff.

"Good, it might be a good idea to start making something like this yourself. The road of life is curvy, you never quite know where you are going to end up." Harry told her while closing the wall and setting the stone back in place. "Now, we are going to meet Rolo. However, before we do that I need to warn you. Rolo might seem like a nice enough guy, but you don't survive in this kind of business without being hard. Don't be fooled by his exterior that man is a monster."

"Then why do you go to him?"

"The reason that everyone else does. He is the best at what he does and being despicable doesn't impact his ability to do good work. Just watch yourself around him, okay?"

Harry walked back to the main street with Natasha following. They went further into the slums getting closer to the marketplace where Harry had met Natasha. They were a few blocks past it when Harry finally turned and walked up a stoop. Their destination building wasn't much different from the buildings surrounding it, which meant that it was pretty much decaying before their eyes. The paint was peeling off the wall and the wooden railing was rotted through. Harry didn't let the appearance stop him and knocked on the door.

"What do you want?" The surly Russian voice that called out from behind the door didn't take anyone by surprise.

"It's Harry." The door swung open to a face that fit the voice perfectly which wasn't a good thing.

Rolo was a sickly skinny blond man with dark rings around his eyes, sores on his face, and missing teeth. Natasha almost flinched back in disgust, but stopped herself.

"Harry! My good man, did you bring Rolo a present?" Rolo's voice was sickly sweet, broken English as his eyes undressed Natasha. Harry felt Goosebumps cover his skin, but ignored them.

"We need passports and IDs." Harry stepped closer to Rolo, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look Harry in the eyes. He whispered menacingly to Rolo, "That girl belongs to me and if you so much as look at her again I will rip your eyes out of their sockets, cut off your balls and sodomize you with them."

Rolo had the decency to look scared out of his mind for a few seconds before nodding frantically and backtracking into the apartment. "Of course, of course, my good man. Rolo does not touch that which isn't his. Come in and bring your pretty with you. Rolo will do his best work for you."

The inside of the building didn't look much different from the outside, peeling wallpaper and rotten floors. There were piles of garbage surrounding the entrance and Harry had to force Natasha into the house behind him. It wasn't until they got to the backroom that it changed. The walls became sturdy and un-warped. The floors were a nice clean tile and not a speck of dust was out of place. The entire room was filled with complicated machinery, printing machines and presses. There were cameras set up in one corner and a couple of computer's against a wall.

"United States." Harry stated to the man. Rolo just nodded and swayed in a way that made Harry think back to the Longbottoms in Saint Mungos - like he wasn't really all there.

Rolo pulled out a stool and motioned Harry forward. Harry sat on it in front of the camera stiffly.

"Good, good. I just take picture and get names and all set. United States popular destination." Rolo nodded to himself and absentmindedly pressed on the camera to take the picture. There was a flash and cranking noises before the picture popped onto the computer screen. "Now the pretty." Rolo waved Natasha forward, who looked more than a bit hesitant about getting close to him. "Come, come. More to do today."

Natasha sat gingerly on the stool and not a second after the picture was taken did she vacate it to stand next to Harry again. She was just a step behind him, but always seemed to be using him as a shield between her and Rolo. Harry didn't really mind it, Natasha could take care of herself if she really needed to and if she wanted to pretend to be the innocent lamb for a second then Harry didn't care.

"How long?" Harry kept his sentences short and to the point, the sooner they got out of this place the better.

"Thirty minutes. Sit on couch, names?" Rolo asked Harry, not even glancing in Natasha's direction.

"Harry and Natalie Granger." Harry told him and Rolo spun back around to the computer. Once he sat down he completely ignored the two of them just tapping away. Natasha looked at Harry in surprise.

"Rolo does good work." Harry said with a shrug. It was true, despite his rather low opinion of the man. Neither Harry nor Natasha sat on the grungy looking couch, but stood waiting for thirty minutes until the machines had stopped whirling.

Rolo sprang from his seat and started piling the papers that came from the machines. He held them under lights and checked every inch before turned back to Harry with a smile.

"All good. Money?" Rolo slipped the pile of papers into a folder and held out his dirty hands. Harry pulled the stack of bills from his pocket and handed it over, plucking the folder from Rolo's hands. Harry put his hand on Natasha's arm and led her from the building. He didn't stop even when they heard a moan from upstairs. He didn't let go until they were out of the house and on their way down the road.

"You never go back there, alright? Not without backup." Harry said succinctly and started walking away. Natasha stared after Harry in confusion before following.

"Why not? What was that noise from upstairs?"

"Rolo runs a brothel - of sorts - in his spare time." Harry told her without looking at her.

"Of sorts?"

The look that Harry shot Natasha made her stop in her tracks and turn around. For a few seconds it looked as if she was going to march back into the building, but Harry put a stop to that with another look.

"We don't go to the man because we like him. We go to him because he does his job better than anyone else. He made sure of that when he set up his business. He is the only forger in 300 kilometers worth the money. He is an evil man who has made himself invaluable and someday you might need him as well."

Natasha nodded slowly and Harry started walking away again, trying to get as far away from that place as possible. Natasha looked back in disgust for a moment before following him.

* * *

Columbia University was a gorgeous old university in New York State. However, just being on the campus gave Harry the creeps. Too many bad things had happened on school campuses in his lifetime for him to be comfortable on it. It didn't help the feeling of foreboding that was creeping down his spine.

"Do I look okay?" Natasha was speaking English, as she had been doing for the past few days every since they had gotten to America.

"Yep." Harry nodded to her and had to stop in shock for the hundredth time that day when he glanced at her.

Natasha did her disguise very well. The makeup that she had applied made her look like a small women of college age than the girl she actually was. The outfit and the way that she moved all indicated a woman and it was a little unsettling to Harry. Natasha's short skirt and low cut shirt showed off the baby smooth skin that real women would die to have. Her books and glasses also made her look like the student she was supposed to be.

Harry's disguise was a little less intense. His clothes and hair was rumpled. His bag over one shoulder was close to falling apart and it fit well with the image he was trying to play. Natasha had informed him after two days of observation on the campus that it was what most of the guys were wearing. Harry thought it was a little goofy to wear unwashed clothes outside, but deferred to Natasha's assessment.

"vhere are we going?" Natasha said in the still accented English. She was getting better at it over the past few days, but it was still fairly obvious where she came from.

"That building over there." Harry pointed to the white stoned building next to them. "Malville is helping with a class in there. We should be able to catch him as he is leaving or going in. Let's go."

Harry's eyes were hard as he pushed through the students into the building, Natasha next to him. Harry's eyes scanned the crowd looking for the brown hair from the photos. He noticed more than a few stray eyes locking onto Natasha and with a flick of the wand in his pocket the eyes turned away. A pretty woman was always good distraction, but not when the woman was about to kill someone.

Harry caught sight of the right hair and body just as it entered a classroom.

"Shit, he's inside the class. We need to be careful. You should do the glide by. You have your needle?" Harry questioned her while never looking away from the door.

"Yes."

"Then go." Harry pointed to the room. It shouldn't take her more than a second. It was a quick glide by, walk past the target and prick him. It was a nothing move and she would be out of there in a second. They would pick up their money and move onto the next target. Harry told himself this as he waited by the wall outside the door. There was no reason to get involved and Natasha needed experience. Harry tensely waited there until he heard a voice call out from behind the door.

"If everyone could just take their seats please." That was the voice of the professor, which meant the class was starting, which was wrong because Natasha should have been out of there by now. Harry sprang to the door and looked inside.

Crouched on the floor close to the target was Natasha. She seemed to be looking frantically for something on the floor and Harry's heart sank. There was only one thing that Natasha would look for, the needle. Natasha had dropped her needle. Harry started to open the door, but before he could get very far a body stepped in front of it.

"Sorry, young man, but if you want to be in my class you must get here on time." The Professor that stood in front of the door was an old, white haired gentleman that just shook his head sadly and closed the door before Harry could respond.

"No, wait... shit." The door was locked, there was no way he was getting in that room. "Bloody dumbass." Harry scowled at the door before he took in deep breath. This shouldn't be too hard, just wait for the class to be over with and get him then. Natasha would have to sit through a boring lecture on particle physics -whatever that was- but otherwise everything would be exactly the same.

Harry kept repeating this to himself as he glared at the offending door. He didn't need to burst into that room because Natasha wasn't in danger. It was a college classroom, not the middle of a warzone. Their target was barely past pubescence, not a militant solider. This was an easy target.

However, no matter how many times the words repeated themselves in his head it didn't make the hour go by any faster. The seconds crept by like snails and by the time students started trickling out of the classroom he could already feel grey hairs start to grow on his head.

Harry's eyes moved crazily through the oncoming mob of student trying to spot familiar red hair. It didn't help though, because Natasha was shorter than everyone else anyway, he wouldn't be able to see her. Harry squashed the fear that rose in his chest and stood still. He concentrated on the noises that surrounded him until he heard the right one.

"Hello there, I was just wondering if I could ask you for some help on a homework question." Natasha's voice flowed through the crowd. She was talking to someone, the target?

"Are you from Russia? I spent a few years there at a job. Your accent sounds ... follow me to my office." The voices were cutting out now, getting further away. Harry's head turned frantically trying to spot them.

"Thank you, I would...born there...study abroad." Natasha kept character well, but this wouldn't have been necessary if everything had just gone according to plan.

Harry squashed a sigh of relief when he finally spotted dark red curly hair as it was about to turn a corner next to a brown haired figure. he pushed his way through the crowd of students without remorse. His entire mind was focused on Natasha.

He moved through the hallways following Natasha and Malville slowly. There wasn't much that could be done to get to them any faster and despite his minor heart attack earlier, Natasha wasn't in any trouble. It was only once Natasha and Malville entered a room that Harry stopped rushing forward. He moved slowly now getting closer to the door gradually. Once he got outside of the room he stood next to the door and started listening to the conversation.

Natasha didn't need any help yet and no doubt she wanted to do this job herself, so Harry contained his desire to burst through the door and waited for her.

"You lived in Russia?" Natasha's voice floated through the door.

"Yeah, for a couple of years actually. I worked as an assistant to a research scientist there. It is actually pretty crazy because just a day ago I got the call that he had died in some sort of freak heart attack. It was crazy because I always remember him being so healthy, but things like that happen I suppose."

"I am sorry to hear that." Natasha actually sounded sorry which made Harry smile a little at the absurdity of it.

"Don't worry about that now. I was just wondering what it was you were looking for."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't play coy. I saw you looking at me all throughout the class, I couldn't keep my eyes off of you myself.

"No, I just..."

Harry didn't hear the rest of the sentence because in that moment his rage overtook him completely. Before he really understood what was happening he burst through the door, slamming it against the wall. Natasha and Malville looked at him surprised. Harry quickly took in their appearance and his vision went red. Natasha was pressed against the desk, Malville in front of her with his hand on her thigh. Natasha looked shocked at his entrance, but didn't remove the hand from her thigh.

Harry didn't remember the few seconds after that, but came back to himself standing over the body of Walter Malville. Malville had a large dagger sticking out of his chest and a slash across his throat poring blood onto the floor. Harry pulled the dagger from him with a tug and grabbed Natasha by the arm to lead her away.

"Harry, what are you..." Natasha shut up at the angry look that Harry shot at her.

They stalked through the campus quickly and before he knew it they were in the car driving away. Harry sped into the parking lot of their hotel and got out quickly. He snapped at Natasha when she was moving to slow out of the car and glared at anyone else that came close. It was barely another minute before they were in their hotel room and Harry was glaring at Natasha.

Natasha refused to buckle under the pressure of his gaze and glared at him. "What was all that? I had him exactly where I wanted him until you came bursting in to the room. You killed the target without getting any information from him. Didn't you want to know what Caudswell was up to that got him killed."

"NO." Harry shouted at her. "And neither should you. Our job is not to know what bloody stupid thing someone has done to get them killed. Our job is to kill the people."

"Did you say that we should know our clients."

"Natasha," Harry growled at her, "I do not care what Caudswell was doing, all I care about is getting the job done and protecting myself from fallout. I study my clients because I want to know if someone is going to stab me in the back. I care to know just enough about the target to kill him, as should you. Don't get caught up in politics that don't concern you, it will just get you killed."

"Fine. That still doesn't explain the completely unprofessional behavior that you displayed in that..." Harry cut her off.

"You broke a rule."

"What?" Natasha looked at him shocked.

"You broke a rule. Specifically, rule number three. Do you remember it?" Harry asked with a growl. Natasha looked baffled. "Don't follow potential hostiles into enclosed spaces without backup."

"That's not...I mean...Malville wasn't a dangerous criminal. You said it yourself, he was a nothing target, not dangerous."

"That's not the impression I got when I walked in on you two." Harry snarled at her.

"I am not a child, Harry." Natasha spat. "You don't have to protect me from all men. I know exactly what they want and how to use it against them, it is my greatest strength. I can't do my job with an overprotective brother looking over my shoulder all the time. I don't need to be protected."

"That's not really what it looked like to me. You are fourteen years old, Natasha. I don't care if the pope himself wants to screw you, I am not going to let him touch you."

"I'm not a CHILD!" Natasha screamed at Harry.

"YOU ARE TOO!" Harry screamed back.

"I AM YOUR PARTNER!" Natasha yelled at Harry. "If you want it to stay that way than stop this overprotective act and let me do my job." The tense silence that filled the room lasted for several minutes. The two partners glared at each other, neither willing to give first. Natasha finally asked a question that broke the silence. "What happened to your eyes?"

Harry shot back, surprised. "What?"

"In the room, after you killed Malville, your eyes went red for a second." Natasha told him. Harry shook his head and turned around.

"No, they didn't. Trick of the light." Harry pulled off his shirt and headed to the bathroom. "I'm going to take a shower." Harry only stopped at Natasha's soft words.

"Harry, if you can't trust me to protect myself with the most naive client we will probably every get, then this partnership will not work."

"Fine." Harry snapped angrily. He didn't like it one bit. "I will let you do your job as long as you aren't in immediate danger, but you can't forget Rule three again. Do we understand each other? You always let me provide backup." It was said as a statement and Harry meant it. He was getting to emotional over this girl, this couldn't happen again or he would break it off himself.

"Fine."

Harry nodded and disappeared into the bathroom.

Kill two complete.

* * *

AN: Hello everyone. Thanks to those that reviewed last chapter. This one took me a little longer because I had some tests this past week. As per usual if you like what you read then please review. It makes me feel good which in turn makes me write faster. If you notice any errors please point them out to me, that would be a huge help.

Thanks all,

~Rain


	4. Jason Mallory

Disclaimer: I don't own/torture people with the Avengers or Harry Potter.

WARNING: There is content in this chapter that is NOT suitable for children. It certainly earns it's mature rating.

* * *

**Colonel Jason Mallory**

* * *

Harry watched Natasha flip through the pages of Forbes Magazine mindlessly. He didn't quite know why she was looking at Forbes, but he could only imagine it was one of two reasons. One, she wanted advice on how to hide her money from taxes and what best to invest in. Two, she wanted to know who next to target for her gold digging con.

At seventeen years old, Natasha was quite a bit different from the fourteen year old that had followed him around three years ago. She had grown into her skin in a way that made Harry almost regret the fifth rule of their partnership agreement, almost. Her body was slim and toned. The black outfits that she wore now were form fitting and slick. They still contained hidden pockets for weapons, but were of a much higher quality that anything she had worn three years ago. He glanced down at her hip where the cloth of the outfit was hiding her only identifying tattoo, an ouroboros with a black widow spider inside. The same tattoo lay on his hip. It was something they did together on their first year anniversary after a particularly rough job.

Her red hair was as dark as always, but cut short to stay out of the way. Her face was just on the cusp of adulthood and prettier than any of the other woman he had ever gotten close to. She was young, but beautiful. She was the type of beauty than drew old perverted men, which was one of the reasons she was so good at coning them out of their money.

She had started her con last year on their tour of Europe. One of their targets was a high society type and Natasha had gotten in to one of their parties. The job was done quickly, but Natasha stayed around to chat with the other wealthy individuals. That of course lead to her getting into bed with one of them and then a whole string of them. The presents that she received from the targets made the job worth it to Natasha. So it became one of her goals in every city she stayed at to meet gullible men to take advantage of. She did it between jobs in the city so she was never bored and waiting.

Harry figured he had a little to do with her side job. He was perhaps a little too harsh with the no sex rule when they were first starting out and endeavored to keep Natasha away from the scene for as long as possible. Which eventually lead to this string of mindless sex and gold digging. Harry shook his head. He no longer controlled what Natasha did or who she did it with. He was her partner not her father.

"Here he comes, try to look professional." Harry tapped Natasha on the shoulder. She closed her magazine and placed it on the table in front of her.

The meet up place for this particular job was an empty warehouse in Los Angeles, California. There were some windows on the upper part of the building, but no real defining features to the warehouse that was surrounded by other warehouses. It was a mostly empty room with some boxes in one corner and a table in the center.

Harry focused his gaze on the man entering and immediately tensed. A chill ran up his spine and a strong feeling of foreboding overcame him. Something was very wrong with this picture. It took him a few seconds to figure out what it was, but then slightly shaking of hands and shifty eyes gave him away. This man was nervous, which was never a good state of being for a person about to hire the services of two assassins. Harry turned to warn Natasha, but saw that she had already tensed herself and was looking around suspiciously. Nervous clients were bad news.

Harry and Natasha had only had one other client that acted suspiciously. After they had done the job for him the client had tried to kill them. Needless to say, nervous clients weren't good for anyone and put Harry and Natasha on edge.

The man scurried across the room and nodded to them.

"Basilisk, Black Widow, I have a job for you." The man told them in a rushed, breathless voice. Harry rolled his eyes, but refrained from a sarcastic comment.

"What's the job?" Natasha asked leaning against the table.

"A Colonel in the United States Army Rangers has overstepped his boundaries and I need him taken care of."

"What a tactful way of putting it." Harry said offhandedly. The client shot him a look that was not entirely friendly and turned back to Natasha.

"Here is all of the information you need to know." The client placed the folder on the table and opened his mouth to say more, but before he got to the sound of breaking glass crashed through the air.

Harry didn't have time to twist his head or move out of the way. He didn't have time to do anything before the client's head snapped to the side. The splatter of blood that came from the gapping head wound wasn't enough to unsettle him. Harry had seen more blood than that by the time he was eight, Dudley had made sure of it. Harry knew though just how much blood was stored in a human body and by the size of the wound, more would be gushing out soon. In the milliseconds that followed the shot Harry let himself glance around, tracing the angle of the head wound back to the broken window pane and the flash of light across the street on a building rooftop.

"SNIPER! DOWN!" Harry barely recognized the words that exited his mouth, but moved without thinking. The crash of the table to the floor, Natasha moving as quickly as he behind it. The wood was too flimsy to be more than a screen that the sniper couldn't see behind. The bullets would pierce the wood easily, he just had to make sure that neither he nor Natasha was in the way of them. As far as cover went, it was about as bad as you could get.

Double doors that let the client into the warehouse swung open and the pounding of boots hitting the floor could be heard. Natasha pulled out one of her knives and angled it. The flat part of it acted like a mirror, showing the room beyond. Twenty heavily armed men in black combat gear stood in front of the door. They were spearheaded at the table, but hadn't shot yet. Which either meant that they needed visual contact before opening fire, or they wanted Natasha and him alive, neither were good prospects.

There was only one way he could see out of this - magic.

Harry thought quickly, flipping through his mind's book of spells. There were a few shields that protected from physical contact, but were fairly obvious. Harry seriously doubted surrounding the both of them in a titanium bubble was going to help any. Harry pulled out his wand silently thinking up a plan on the spot. Natasha was turned away from him, but was pulling out her guns. Harry thought she was fooling herself if she thought she could get out of this so easily.

"Basilisk, do you think..." Natasha's use of his codename told him just how much of a shithole she thought herself in. She had been trained never to revel anything to enemies including names. She also looked like she was about to go on a suicide shooting spree. Harry tightened his grip on his wand, he wouldn't allow that to happen so he cut her off.

"Widow, when I give the signal I want you to run for the door. Bypass the soldiers, don't kill anyone. Got it?" Harry spread his arms and gave a slight wave. Natasha turned to ask him what he meant just in time to see a flash of his wand. "_Nox_." Harry said the spell out loud and used the wand motion because he needed this to be powerful, as powerful as possible.

Blackness crushed the occupants of the room. In fact, from his view out the window Harry could see all of the surrounding buildings fall into a similar state of darkness. He spread his magic thin, as far as he could to give the sniper less of a chance to see them. The spell wouldn't last long, maybe ten minutes, but long enough to get them away from here.

"Move." Harry whispered frantically to her moving his wand arm again. The shield that he cast over them wasn't as strong as some, but would protect them from projectiles as long as he could power it and it would move with them.

Natasha sprang from her position behind the table. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness quickly, or maybe she just knew the layout of the room well. She moved quickly and quietly, curving around the grouping of soldiers. He heard murmured curses and whispers, but didn't listen closer. The men had positioned themselves into a circle, guns facing outward. When Natasha moved she made sure that her body was always facing the men so if they suddenly regained their sight she would have time to react. Harry didn't care about that, he just wanted to get them out of the building as quickly as possible.

Harry didn't let out a sigh of relief once they got to the door, but it was close.

"There they are." A shout came from the man facing them. Harry let out a curse of his own and shot through the door right after Natasha. He closed the door just in time to hear banging as something hit it. He placed his free hand on the doorknob locking it. It wouldn't delay them very much, but anything would help. Harry motioned to Natasha which way to turn and off they went. He made sure that they were heading away from the sniper, trying to keep as much distance and buildings between them as possible.

"Basilisk, what was..." Natasha whispered frantically to Harry, still moving forward.

"Shut up, we have five minutes, tops." Harry told her, looking around nervously. The wand never left his hand and he stayed tense the entire time they were rushing through the streets.

They were three streets over when he heard it, cars backfiring in the distance. He cursed again and pushed Natasha to move faster. He needed to get out of there before the bloody Aurors cut everything off. They would no doubt quarantine the area and Harry needed to be far, far away when that happened.

"What is going on?" Natasha asked him, looking toward him inquisitively.

"Bloody hell, woman, shut up until we get out of danger." Harry told her, glancing over his shoulder.

"We are still in danger?" She asked confused. Of course she was confused, Harry had never told her about the Wizarding World or his place in it. It didn't look like he had much of a choice now though. "I have a nook over there." Natasha told him, pointing to an alley that they were passing. She had no doubt placed one close to the meeting spot in case something went wrong, but it would be of no use now.

"Too close." Harry told her, his eyes scanning the surrounding buildings. It wouldn't take too long for the American Aurors to send out people to cordon of the area. They were almost far enough away now, but he didn't dare stop.

Then, just as he was about to give a sigh of relief, a gunshot noise rang through the air. Harry turned to face it. A younger man in bright red robes stepped onto the street from an alleyway. Harry pushed Natasha to one of the nearby parked cars. He motioned her to hide and keep quiet.

"Hey, you there." The man noticed Harry, which wasn't a surprise, Harry was standing in the middle of the road and the ambient light from the city helped the Auror to see. The man stalked toward him trying to see him better. The darkness that still surrounded them was a good protection, but it wouldn't last forever. His wand hand twitched, ready for battle. He had to decided quickly what he wanted to do. "Did you see anything that happened a few streets over?" He pointed in the direction of the warehouse they were fleeing from. He must be a new recruit, which is why they sent him to cordon off the area.

"No. I heard some noises from over there but wasn't near enough to see what was going on." Harry told him cautiously. The man nodded.

"Okay, sorry to bother you." Harry turned away slowly, almost not quite believing his luck. He just started walking away when the lights suddenly came on. After a second of near blinding brightness as the streetlights came back on Harry tensed.

The man gasped from behind him and Harry cursed. Of all the times to be wearing a sleeveless shirt, it had to be the time when he ran into a trainee Auror.

"STOP RIGHT THERE!" The shout was shaky, but loud. Harry didn't have to glance behind him to know that there was a wand pointed at his back. "Turn around slowly. Hands up." The voice was still shaky and Harry wanted to sigh.

Harry turned slowly, the wand in his hand going up into the air along with his free hand. He didn't have time for this.

He braced his legs and leaned forward a little. It didn't take much, just a push of magic toward his legs and he sprang away. His body flew through the air easily, the Auror staring in shock at the man flying towards him. He gathered his wits in time to send out on hastily cast offensive charm, but all it took was a lean of the body and the charm missed him.

Harry leaned in a little and pulled up his free hand. He was just far enough away from the Auror that you could see a tiny flash of red light exit his hand and hit the red robed man. The robed man hit the ground with Harry crouched over him. It didn't take more than a few seconds before he sprang away.

Natasha was standing in the middle of the road behind him. Harry didn't stop and walked right past her.

"You coming?" He asked gruffly, still moving.

"Who was that guy?" Natasha asked him.

"An Auror." Harry answered truthfully, turning onto another street. He walked over to a parked car, tired of this walking around business. He tucked his wand away and place a hand on the car door handle. With a click, the door opened and Harry got inside, opening the passenger side door as well. There was no use hiding from Natasha now, best make the most of the situation.

"What's an Auror and how did you open that?" She asked from outside the car.

"I will tell you when we get to a safe place. Now, will you get in?" Harry placed his hand on the car ignition keyhole. He pushed some of his magic inside and twisted, the car came to life with a growl. Natasha got into the car reluctantly and off they went.

It only took them fifteen minutes of driving to reach their destination, a back alley in the middle of downtown. Harry parked the car haphazardly and got out, slamming the door on the way. Natasha followed him down the alley cautiously. Harry walked behind one of the dumpsters and took out his wand, Natasha's sharp eyes following his every move.

He tapped the brick fifth from the bottom and three over. With the same magic that had him so entranced when he went to Diagon Alley the first time, the wall slid open to reveal a doorway. He motioned Natasha forward. Her dumbfounded expression would have been funnier if the situation was any better.

Natasha stepped through the door and gasped. Harry pushed past her into the room and closed the door behind him, the scrapping of bricks moving back into place could be heard. The room was one of the many he had placed in cities all over the world. The nooks where quick stop places, he had many of them in the city, but the safe houses were fewer.

There was a large queen sized bed on one wall of the windowless room. There was a dining room table a few feet away from a small kitchen on another. There was an armoire that he knew opened up to his collection of weapons. The armoire was another one of his cleaver inventions, he had one in every safe house that all gave entrance to the same collection of weapons.

"Basilisk, what is this place?" Natasha's voice was sharp and she was still speaking his codename, which meant she still thought she was in danger. Harry sighed to himself, troublesome.

"You are in one of my safe houses. There is a bathroom through that door if you need it, it's pretty small though."

"What are you?" She said harshly, she had put away her guns at some point, but instead held a dagger in one hand. Harry didn't blame her, it was a lot to take in. He plopped onto the counter and faced her.

"I'm a wizard. A wand waving, magic using, broom riding wizard." Harry told her succinctly. She snorted.

"No, but really?" Natasha asked amused.

"Do I look like I'm joking Natasha?" Harry asked harshly. "What would you rather the answer be? That I am a genetic experiment gone wrong, an alien from outer space, a military super soldier that escaped? Would that be any less completely ridiculous than a wizard?" His tone was biting. Natasha looked at him, still trying to understand just how much her life had changed in one night.

"How long have you been one?" Natasha asked emotionlessly, tucking the dagger away. The man that she had known for three years had turned into someone she didn't know at all. Natasha the informant had quickly overcome Natasha the assassin.

"My whole life, but only trained since I was eleven." He rested his head against the upper counter. "This is going to be hard for you to believe, but there is an entire society out there of people just like me. The wizarding world." Harry snorted to himself. There was silence for a few moments.

"That man tonight, he was one?" Natasha asked.

"Yes, he was an Auror, one of their police officers."

"Why didn't you jut hide from him, with me? Why did you attack him? How did he know you were not what you seemed?" Natasha spat out questions now, trying to understand.

"Which would you like me to answer first?" Harry laughed a little. "I didn't hide because I didn't know he was such an incompetent. All Aurors are taught a spell that shows any humans in the area, if he had used it while we were hiding I would have been at a disadvantage. The man was pretty green though, so I probably could have saved myself some trouble if I had."

"Did you kill him?"

"No, the red light is a stunning spell, one of the first offensive spells that you learn. I had to get close to him to use it without him blocking. Wizards rarely expect a physical attack, it's one of their weaknesses."

"Any other weaknesses?" Natasha asked emotionlessly, sitting down at the table. Harry almost laughed, back to the same old Natasha ready for anything.

"Some, but Natasha there is something else you should know." He caught her eyes. "Just you knowing this information is dangerous that's why I kept it from you for so long. There are very few wizards in the world compared to muggles, non-wizards, but that doesn't make them any less dangerous. There is a spell they can use to wipe your memories. It is supposed to be safe, but it really isn't. They wipe all of your memories connecting to your knowledge of the wizarding world, which could be years of your life. Years, gone in an instant, possibly you would never even know I existed. That's if they do it right. A badly cast charm could bring you back to your toddler years." Natasha kept his gaze and nodded. "You can't let any spell they cast at you hit."

"If they are all giant streams of different colored light I don't know how I would let that happen." She said sharply. Harry scoffed a little.

"Of course, I am not doubting your skills I am just trying to impress on you just how important it is to stay out of a magical firefight." Harry stopped. There was probably more she needed to know, but he didn't really want to tell her.

Silence fell over the room again for several minutes. Harry tried to unwind from the fight and Natasha's dissecting gaze never left Harry. It almost came as a surprise when she broke the silence.

"The tattoo you have changes on its own, doesn't it?" Harry looked at her surprised.

"What?" He croaked out.

"The tattoos, the tally marks, you don't get them do you? You don't go to a tattoo parlor and get new marks." The last sentence was a statement, she knew exactly what she was talking about. "It always confused me. After jobs you would have a new mark, but I would never be able to place the time you got away long enough to have it done. I just thought I was missing something, but I wasn't."

She wasn't asking a question, Harry's gaze darkened.

"You're wrong." He told her ignoring her baffled gaze. "It isn't a tattoo, it's a curse. I was placed on me against my will." He rubbed one of the marks absentmindedly. "Is this really what you want to know about, of all things?" Natasha glared and nodded. Harry sighed, but continued. "I used to think it was them trying to punish me into remembering all of the people I killed." Natasha looked at him incredulously, she knew better than most, there was very little chance you would ever forget the people you killed.

"What was it really for?"

"It's a reminder and a warning." She looked confused at his answer. "Not for me, of course. The curse was actually made by a viking wizard clan, it was to show off how many people they killed in battle. Of course, that changed over time, they started applying it to kids sure that their son was going to be a great warrior. It only took one time for one of those kids to commit a murder that the curse had different connotations entirely. The curse is a warning to every wizard that looks upon it, this man is dangerous and deadly. It is a warning that I was too strong to be contained for my crimes and to kill me on sight of they get the chance."

Natasha stared at shock at his tally marked arms. "They show your kills?" She was almost breathless. Harry nodded. "But that means...holy fuck." She didn't try to count the tally marks, she already knew how many were there, she had counted them years ago.

"I used to be a soldier in a wizarding war that bordered on apocalyptic. Needless to say, I got a few kills." He shrugged, the past was the past.

"They branded you?" Natasha's face was emotionless, but her tone held a hint of anger in it that only Harry knew well enough to hear.

"Yeah." He didn't care, not really. "All it really means is that I can't walk around in front of wizards without a long sleeved shirt. So, we stay here for the night and then head out in the morning." He hopped off the counter. "Dibs on the shower."

"Don't you want to know who tried to kill us?" Natasha asked.

"Sure, but that's not really a problem we can fix right now. The client is dead and we don't even know who he was planning to kill. It might have been a trap all along."

"I wouldn't say we have nothing." She pulled out a folder and placed it on the table. At sometime during the fight she must have picked it up. "Colonel Jason Mallory, Ranger sniper. Don't you want to get the guy that sold us out?" Harry looked at her sharply.

"What do you mean, sold us out?"

"I recognized one of the soldiers that came in the doors. Big, blond and very familiar. I'll give you a hint, he was also, very Russian." Harry looked at her with wide eyes.

"That was three years ago, the pharmaceutical companies couldn't seriously still hold a grudge." He sat down at the table and picked up the folder. "Our first job together, man that brings back memories."

"I don't know about why they are still chasing us, but I know you person we should thank. After all, he did reunite us with old friends." She pointed to the folder.

"Colonel Mallory, I think we should get better acquainted." Harry picked up the folder and started flipping through it.

"Jason Mallory is a notorious ladies man, he has a couple of notations in here for misconduct with the women in his unit. Which is a nice way of putting rape. He has commendations for good work in hostile situations, which means that the army can't get rid of him without losing a good soldier. He also happens to have an apartment in the city." Natasha told him from her side of the table. "I want this one."

Harry smiled at her and put down the folder. "Do you really?" Natasha nodded. "Fine, but before you kill him we have to interrogate him. Military men are always so stubborn, but I have something that can help with that."

"Tonight?" She asked a little surprised.

"Yes, we need to be out of the city by tomorrow, so we do it tonight. Shouldn't be too hard, he thinks he is safe now that the man who wants him dead is gone." Harry stood up and look disappointedly at the door that lead to the bathroom. "I guess the shower will just have to wait. Go get a disguise from the armoire." He stood up and stretched a little.

Natasha stood from the table and headed to the armoire. The swear word that came out of her mouth when she opened it couldn't be repeated in respectable company. "Harry, what is this?"

The room that the armoire opened to was filled to the brim with weapons, clothes, wigs, and any other miscellaneous item he thought he would every need.

"It's the armoire of course." He smiled to himself, showing Natasha magic would certainly be fun.

* * *

"Wake up." A blond haired Natasha slapped the man tied to the chair roughly. Harry leaned against a wall next to the door, watching the scene in front of him.

Jason Mallory was very easy to trick. He was already getting drunk in a bar when they found him. All it took was a scantily clad blond Natasha and some alcohol before he was making a fool out of himself to get her into his bed. Natasha knocked him unconscious as soon as they entered the room and tied him to the chair. She had let Harry in a moment later.

"Whaa..." The groggy man slowly came back to consciousness, too slowly for Natasha. She slapped he again, harder.

"We don't have time for this lover boy, wake up." Natasha stood in front of him. The man's head was snapped to one side then the other, his eyes growing brighter. He stared at Natasha confused.

"Amy, what are you..."

"Not Amy, moron." She pulled off the blond wig with a tug. Her dark red curly hair springing loose. The look of complete terror on the man's face was enough to know that he knew exactly who she was. He looked behind her for a second and caught sight of Harry. Harry gave a cruel grin to the man and waved a little, if it was possible for him to get even more scared he did.

"What do you want?" The shaky voice asked.

"We want to know who you sold us out to." Natasha said pulling out a large knife, too big to use on missions, but big enough to be intimidating in interrogations.

"Chezk Molotov. I don't know if that's his real name, but that's the one he used." The words came tumbling from his mouth. "He was the one that was looking for you. He gave you descriptions and everything. I just told him where you would be. You aren't getting paid for this so you can let me go, okay? I told you want you wanted to know."

Natasha looked at him for a moment silent and then turned to Harry. "Aren't these guys supposed to be harder to break?"

"Apparently we just got a sucky one." Harry answered. "What a shame."

"Indeed." Natasha turned back to the man. "I'm kind of disappointed I had this whole thing planned out and now we don't need it because you are such a pussy. Oh well." She shrugged and then lifted the knife.

"WAIT, wait, I told you what you wanted to know. You can let me go." He shouted, trembling in his ties.

Natasha laughed cruelly. "Whatever gave you the impression we were going to let you go?" She leaned close to the man. "You sold us out. Kind of a stupid move if you wanted to stay alive."

"Please...please...please..." He started crying, tears running down his face. Natasha stood and tapped the knife against her chin, pretending to consider for a second.

"Very well, I was going to do this after you were dead, but since you want to stay alive so much..." Natasha reached down and pulled the knife through his shirt cutting it in half, revealing his chest. She took the knife in one hand and started tracing on his chest. "You better hold still, canvases don't move." She pressed down.

Screams filled the room for several minutes. Harry was glad that he put up a silencing ward when he entered otherwise the noises surely would have drawn unwanted attention. The man's whimpering continued even as Natasha backed away from his chest. The blood from the knife dripped to the floor.

SNITCH.

The word was carved into his chest right about the bloody image of a spider in an ouroboros.

"There, now, just for the finishing touch." She placed the bloody knife on the whimpering man's throat.

"Nonono..."He didn't get any further than that before the knife sliced into his jugular. He had barely enough energy to gurgle up blood before he was dead.

Natasha turned back to Harry, face emotionless.

"Let's go."

Harry nodded to her, they had done enough for one night.

* * *

AN: Yeah, finished a chapter. Sorry about the wait, I have been reading tons this week. I just finished almost all of the books by Trudi Canavan. She does the Black Magician Trilogy. They are good books, I recommend them. I hope you have been having just as good a week as me.

There is a poll up on my author page about the relationships in the story. I will be checking periodically to see what you think. That being said, I have final say. I hope you like the chapter, if so review. If not, review anyway.

~Rain


	5. Boris Chazov

Disclaimer: I do not own/get drunk with Harry Potter or the Avengers.

WARNING! This is the darkest timeline. Bonus points if you get that reference.

* * *

**Boris Chazov a.k.a. Chezk Molotov**

* * *

"Come on, Harry. We have been at this for weeks now. We haven't had a job in forever and my boyfriends have been getting too clingy. It is time to focus on a new target." Natasha said from her position on the bed.

Natasha and Harry had long ago gotten used to sleeping in the same room. There was safety in numbers and less of a chance of a rival assassin getting both of them if they were in the same room. Not that there hadn't been a few tries on their lives. It was actually after the first assassination attempt that Natasha insisted on one room. It was shortly after that she insisted on one bed instead of two. Of course, her excuse was wanting more space in the room to exercise, but Harry didn't buy that for very long.

They didn't talk about their pasts very often, there was too much that they couldn't tell each other. However, it didn't take too long sleeping in the same bed for some things to become obvious. The first of which was Natasha craving to be touched and Harry's hatred of it. Harry didn't trust anyone, not really, and didn't like getting close enough for them to do something untoward. This dislike was applied to everyone equally until Natasha burst into his life and then his bed.

When Natasha fell asleep - real, deep sleep - she clutched everything around her tightly and refused to let go. At first, this deep sleep rarely happened, but the longer they slept in the same bed the more common it occurred. Harry didn't let his thoughts delve into why that might be. He also liked to ignore the fact that he continued to let it happen. He had never once told Natasha about this personality trait of hers.

"Not yet." Harry didn't look up from the pile of papers on the table in the room.

They had been in Rome for a month, they had followed their ghost there.

"I'm not saying we completely forget about the guy, but as of right now he has disappeared - vanished. There is nothing more we can do right now. We have tracked down every lead, every whisper from the dark. Frankly, I'm bored and if I know you like I think I do, you are bored too."

"You want to ignore the guy who is trying to kill us?" Harry asked, looking at her incredulously.

"No, I don't. I just don't want to keep chasing the invisible man with the vendetta." Natasha stated, twirling a dagger in her hand.

Chezk Molotov's, the mercenary who had partnered with Jason Mallory, real name was Boris Chazov - something that had given Natasha great pleasure. He had also been fired from his job shortly after Dr. Caudswell's death. Boris had then made it his life's mission to hunt down Harry and Natasha, or rather, Basilisk and Black Widow. Neither of whom had know about his obsession until Mallory.

"Natasha, we can't just..." Harry looked at her for second and then shook his head. There would be no reason to argue with her when her mind was made up. Besides, they had been chasing this man for almost two months. It was time to move on. "Fine, do you have a job in mind?"

Harry closed the folder in front of him and then started organizing the papers on the table.

"Really?" Natasha asked, sitting up excitedly from her lounge. "Of course I do."

* * *

"Isn't there some kind of law against killing a nun?" Harry asked, casually lounging in a chair in their room. Harry grinned as he remembered the image of Natasha in a nun outfit. It wasn't the weirdest thing she had ever worn for a job, though, that particular prize came from a strip joint job in Tokyo.

Natasha was wiping down a bloody blade when she answered. "There is a law against killing anyone, Harry." She said with a smile.

"That's not what I meant. Isn't it some religious immortal sin? Like, you never get into Heaven if you do it?" Harry tipped back his chair onto two legs, looking at the ceiling.

"You believe in Heaven?" Natasha asked amused.

"No. I just think it's odd that you were so gung-ho about that job." Harry pulled the beer bottle up to his lips and took a sip. "Something you want to tell me?" He asked with a smile.

Natasha grimaced. "You are drunk." She said, putting down the cleaned dagger and picking up a bottle.

"Wouldn't be the first time, nor the last." Harry chugged down the remainder of the bottle and picked up another. He popped open the top and took a swig.

"What's got you in such a mood?"

"I think we made a mistake. We should have kept on Boris's trail." Harry told her as seriously as a drunk man could.

"We were going nowhere Harry. There were no more leads, nothing we could follow. The man was a ghost."

"We should have done something about him. I just have this bad feeling." Harry shook his head and took another drink. "It's probably just the alcohol talking."

"It's definitely the alcohol talking. Boris has probably already moved unto another target." She lied. Harry knew she was lying because after everything they had discovered about the man, there was no way that he would let them go. Harry stared at her for a second, analyzing everything about her, the same thing he did every time he was drunk. The look on her face was the same look that it always was when he let alcohol get the better of him, inquisitive. Natasha knew there was only one time that Harry would talk about his past, when he was drunk. She always took advantage of this fact.

Harry sighed and drank. "What is it this time, Natasha?"

Natasha placed a hand on his right arm. Harry knew what that meant, it was of the nights that she would ask about his marks.

"Who was this one?" She pointed to a particular mark on his arm.

" That was Robert Moonstone, rapist, killer, terrorist." Harry said taking another drink, trying not to remember the bloody body laying on a field of bloody bodies. The battle at Hogsmeade was the bloodiest of the war.

"It seems like all of the ones on your lower arms are terrorist. How did you get into that?" Natasha asked, looking at Harry from under her lashes.

"A guy wanted to kill me. He just happened to suck at it, luckily enough." Harry told her. Natasha looked confused, but Harry wasn't going to explain anymore than that. "Not more talking about the past, drink." Harry ordered her. Natasha rolled her eyes, but complied.

"So, I've been thinking." Natasha told him after a few minutes of drinking silently.

"Always a terrifying prospect." He sniggered into his drink. Natasha glared.

"Try to hold back the prepubescent in you for a few seconds and I'll tell you how I think we can catch Boris." Natasha told him.

Harry looked at her curiously. "What's your idea?"

Natasha looked nervous, which she only did when she thought he wouldn't like her idea.

"We hire a sniper." Natasha told him quickly - rushed. She was right, he did hate the idea.

"No. No way. Have you forgotten the Osaka fiasco." Harry told her, placing the drink on the table and looking at her seriously. Natasha looked a little uncomfortable and Harry figured if she was anyone else she would probably be blushing right now.

"Osaka was a onetime thing, a freak accident."

"Like that makes any difference to the client that accidentally got his head blown off." Harry scoffed into his drink.

Harry didn't like snipers, he never had. Of course, it was more than just the debacle in Osaka that caused these feelings. Wizards were as vulnerable to bullets as any other creature on Earth. However, they had to be caught off guard, which meant that Harry couldn't see the gun they were going to shoot him with. Snipers had a great advantage over Harry, they were hidden. Harry didn't know when they were about and there was no spell that would easily point them out. All it told was one particularly good sniper and he was dead in seconds, his magic wouldn't help him at all. That was a terrifying prospect to a wizard and if Harry could help if he would never have one around.

"That was really the client's fault, he chose the wrong sniper. The guy was too unskilled. I won't have that problem. In fact, I already have the perfect guy picked out. He comes highly recommended and everyone I've talked to about him says that they have never been disappointed by his work."

"Natasha, we are not hiring a sniper."

"Don't be so narrow minded. If we get the sniper we just have to be bait and bam, Boris doesn't bother us anymore."

"We can take care of this by ourselves. There is no reason to bring in outside help for this job. We just have to wait for Boris to show himself." Harry took a drink.

"Fine, but I still say we could get rid of this problem much easier with a sniper." Natasha leaned back in her chair. Harry sighed, Natasha wasn't going to let this go.

"Give me the details on the guy I'll think it over." He wouldn't, but Natasha didn't need to know that. They could get rid of this guy on their own if they could find him. Harry emptied the bottle he was holding. "We are out of alcohol."

"Not that." Natasha mock gasped, then laughed. "We have drunk enough for one night, Harry. If we go to sleep now we might actually be able to start trying to find Boris again tomorrow."

"Bah, a few more won't hurt anyone."Especially not Harry because he had a spell that got rid of hangovers. "Come on, let's go to the store." Natasha nodded and stood up.

Before he knew it they were walking down the cobbled stone roads. Harry smiled despite the foreboding chill of the night. There was something pleasing about Rome's streets at night. They reached the store without incident and were soon perusing the bottles.

"How about this one?" Natasha held up a wine bottle, Harry shrugged.

"Ask the guy if it's good." Harry waved to the bored employee sitting behind the counter, no matter where you were in the world some things never changed, there would always be bored shop employees. Natasha spoke to the man for a second before nodding.

"He says it's good."

"Sometimes I really hate the fact that I can't actually speak or read any foreign languages." Harry said casually as Natasha paid for the bottle.

"If you stop cheating you might be more inclined to learn." Natasha commented snidely. She had quickly discovered the spell that he used to translate foreign languages and then set about to mock him for it seeing as she always had to go the hard route and learn the languages of the places they visited.

"That's what I've got you for, little spider." Harry put his hands in his pockets.

Natasha turned to him, surprised. "You really must be drunk, you haven't called me that since Somalia."

With good reason; Somalia had been the first time she stopped being a child in his eyes. She had gutted a man in front of him, there was very little childhood left in someone once they could go that.

"Do you remember the look on the client's face once he saw the images in the paper the next day?" Harry said with a laugh.

"In my defense, he did say he wanted to send a message." Natasha smiled at him.

Harry didn't exactly remember when he started smiling again. He figured it must have been sometime during the second year with Natasha. There was certain times when he was with her that he forgot his past, he forgot all the death and horror. There were certain times when he just lived in the moment and let the rest of the world pass him by. Despite how many times he had pushed the feeling away, ignored the smiles and the way that her hair looked when hit just perfectly by the light, it always came back. Once upon a time the feeling made him consider leaving Natasha, getting as far away from her as possible, there was always a part of him that forced him to stay. It was the smallest part of him, the part that had been crushed to almost nonexistence during the war, that forced him not to leave her.

Harry looked at the lights in the distance and tried to forget the girl beside him. He pushed down the feelings for what seemed like the millionth time. They made rules specifically for this reason, they weren't going to get attached. He let his mind wander for a moment, what if they didn't have those rules, the only excuse he had left not to make a move on Natasha.

He pushed out all the old memories he had of her, the barely out of childhood Natasha, and thought only of the girl he knew now. If they had met now instead of back then, would they have gotten in bed with each other? She was certainly pretty enough, but would be ever be able to forget their history together.

Harry shook his head, trying to get rid of the stray thoughts. Being drunk always made him introspective. There was no use living in what ifs, a lesson he should have learned long ago. He turned around.

"Your being awfully quiet ton..." Harry's eyes scanned the empty street behind him. "Natasha?" Where did she go? "Natasha?" He called again, maybe she was just trying to play joke. "Good job, Widow, you got me." Not the first time she had done so, but this was the first time she had disappeared while they were walking together. "Black Widow, you have proven your skill, show yourself."

Harry's heart started racing when the only answer he got was the wind blowing. Sobriety hit him like a punch to the gut. Natasha would have responded to that. Harry breathed a little faster. He wouldn't hyperventilate, he forcefully told himself. There was a chance that Natasha had just gone back to the hotel to leave him to his thoughts, he reassured himself unsuccessfully.

He turned back around and started heading to the hotel, every step taking him closer to panic. He could apparate, except he couldn't, apparition have been monitored since 1999. He started jogging, then running, then spiriting. If Natasha was sitting in their room laughing when he got back he would kill her. He would hug her then he would kill her. He wouldn't hug her, but he would be relieved. Harry's thoughts jumped back and forward, up and down, sideways. Something was wrong, his whole body was almost shouting it to him.

"NATASHA!" Harry burst through the door to their hotel room. He didn't unlock it, he just knocked it down.

The room was empty. The empty glass bottles littered the table. The bed sheets were ruffled, the chairs were pulled out, their luggage was still there. Everything was exactly as he left it.

His breath became short, he grabbed his chest and fell to the floor. This couldn't be happening, not again. He hadn't let Natasha get captured behind his back, he just hadn't. A bloody body hanging from the ceiling flashed into his mind uninvited, he pushed it away. That wouldn't happen again.

Maybe she had just run away. His eyes shifted to the suitcase under the bed, untouched. He pulled it out and opened it roughly. All of the money was still there, Natasha wouldn't have left without it. Maybe she had seen one of her boyfriends and went to talk to him. His eyes flashed to the table, her phone was still there, he wouldn't be able to call her.

His mind thought quickly. He almost hit himself when the idea popped into his head, a point me charm. He swallowed a sigh of relief, he could find her.

He fumbled pulling his wand out of his pocket, fingers trembling. The flashbacks were almost overwhelming now. He placed the wand in his hand.

"Point me Natasha Romanoff." He gasped out, imagining her in his mind, forcing he will on the spell. He wand spun in his hand, he held his breath.

It kept spinning and spinning.

Harry didn't notice when all of the glass in the room cracked, or the furniture that got pushed to the walls. His terror overwhelmed him.

Wizards, that was the only explanation why the point-me spell wouldn't work. She had to be in a warded area.

NO. There was one other place she could be that would cause the spell not to work. It was only a slightly less terrifying prospect. She was in the air. More specifically she was flying somewhere. Point-me spells didn't know how to react when their target was in the air, they got confused.

He breathed in deep, trying to get a hold of himself. Focused himself, ignoring the niggling thought that Natasha got captured. He let the emotions bleed from his body. He was stronger than that. Natasha was his partner, if she had been kidnapped he would rescue her. If not, he would find her anyway.

He took a deep breath and let his eyes scan the room. On the table where the closed folders of a man called Boris. A feeling of rage almost erupted from his chest before he pushed it down. That's the man who would have taken Natasha, he was the only one with any real reason to. He didn't pick up the folder, he had already memorized it.

Boris Chazov, who had lost his job and his family after the first job Natasha and Harry had ever pulled together, had just jumped to the top of his kill list. Harry didn't know everything there was to know about him, but he would soon enough.

Harry glanced around the room again. This time his eyes settled on Natasha's bag. She had been talking about a sniper earlier if he remembered correctly. She would have already done the background on it before she mentioned it to him. Which meant she would already have a folder on her choice. He pulled open her suitcase and barely dug around for a second before he found it and pulled it out.

The folder didn't have a name on it, but the tag that he was known by. A small and blurry picture rested inside. A young man with a bow and quiver. Harry almost scoffed, but if he knew Natasha would never choose someone unskilled and he might need help getting her out. He sighed, but picked up the folder.

"Well, Hawkeye, let's see what you are made of."

* * *

Harry pushed his way through the crowded bazaar. All of the information he had gathered had lead him here. His eyes scanned the crowd. He soon spotted what he was looking for, a brown haired white man was looking quite at home in the middle of a chess game despite the strange looks he was gathering from the people around him. Harry spotted the guitar case beside him, but instantly knew what really resided inside. He tapped the man on the shoulder.

"I'm sorry, sir, could I talk to you?" Harry asked softly to the back of the man. The man turned around.

"I'm in the middle of a gam..." The man's eyes widened as he caught sight of the mark on his collarbone, the only one visible. He turned back to the game and placed a stack of paper there. "Thanks for the game."

Harry nodded as the man got up and followed him. It took him a few minutes of navigating the crowds before he found a hidden alcove. The man followed him inside and Harry lost the mask.

"I assume you know who I am?" Harry said emotionlessly.

"The infamous Basilisk? Who doesn't? I am surprised to see you here though." The man had his case slung over one shoulder, but despite his relaxed look Harry could see the muscle tensed in his body. "When's the last time you took a shower because you are rank." Humor was his defense, good to know.

"Hawkeye, I have a job for you."

"I already have a job, but thanks for thinking of me." Hawkeye gave a mock salute and turned to go.

"Cancel it." Harry almost growled at him. He took a step closer and forced the man away from the doorway and to the wall. "Listen to me very closely, I need your services. I will pay you well."

"Maybe you have bad ears as well as bad hygiene, I have a job." The man told him firmly, unimpressed. Harry let some of the rage exit his body and from the slightly scared look that entered Hawkeyes eyes some of it must have appeared on his face.

"You don't understand, Hawkeye." He spat. "My partner has been kidnapped and I need to get her out. I also need backup for that job. You are the one that caught her eye. She said you were skilled, but obviously she was mistaken because all I see in front of me is a empty-headed punk whose let his ego overcome his actual skills. So sorry for taking up your time." Harry almost spat at him and turned around ready to walk out of the alcove to try and find another sniper.

"Wait." Harry stopped at the man's words. "Your partner's the red head, right?"

"Yes." Harry said slowly.

"Fine, I'll help." Hawkeye nodded to him. "Let me cancel my job. You have a place to meet up?"

* * *

Ryder Industries had a very industrial headquarters in the middle of a rather unremarkable town in Iowa. It specialized in military medical procedures, which was a nice way of saying it did classified research and development for the military. One of its specialties was enhanced interrogation techniques which was a nice way of saying torture. Something that the military had become very interested in since the 9/11 attacks.

They had also recently hired Boris Chazov who had been more than happy to suggest names of test subjects.

"I really don't think a frontal assault is the best plan." Hawkeye said nervously from his side. He was fiddling with his quiver and fixing his suit.

"We've gone over this. The building is most heavily guarded at night. The entire thing is a bomb ready to explode if someone gets too far inside. The last thing they want for the world to find out exactly what goes on in that building. The only time they are not allowed to use that technology is when there are employees inside. Which is only during the day. We aren't going to be able to sneak in, they have searched that building up and down a billion too many times for there to be any entrances they don't know about. A frontal assault is the best way to do it, the one they will be least expecting."

"Because it's suicide. " Hawkeye mumbled under his breath. Harry ignored him.

"Ready?" Harry asked one last time, checking everything on his person. Hawkeye nodded to him.

Harry cast a notice-me-not on both of them and started moving. The spell was limited, but it would help some.

The entered the glass doors of the building with a push. The receptionist sitting at the front desk looked up just in time to get an arrow through the eye. Harry looked at Hawkeye curiously, who responded with a shrug.

Then they were moving. It was barley two minutes later when they were standing in front of the elevators. The rest of the people in the main lobby were on the floor: unconscious, stabbed, or shot with an arrow.

The elevator doors opened with a ding and both of them stepped inside.

"Where to sir?" Hawkeye asked with a posh British accent, holding up a key he had plucked from one of the security guards bodies.

"Down." Hawkeye pushed the key into the slot on the elevator and pushed the button for the lowest basement.

The elevator doors dinged open to the view of cold concrete walls. The room had one doorway that was guarded by two buff security guards.

Harry spun out of the elevator in a rush, focusing on one of the security guards. His dagger slipped into his hand with practiced ease. He got close enough in seconds. His arms moved with a mind of their own, everything was instinctual. The shocked defense of the guard was no match for his skilled attack. Within seconds the body lay on the floor, blood gushing out of gapping slices on his body. The kill was quick, he had focused on the arteries, the man would be dead within the minute.

He turned back to Hawkeye who was staring at him in a kind of shock.

"Let's go." Harry picked up another key from the security guards body. He stalked over to the door and opened it, ignoring the blaring alarms that started as soon as he did.

The door opened to a concrete hallway that had doors evenly spaced on both walls. The view immediately reminded him of a prison. He grimaced and stepped forward, they didn't have much time now.

Harry rushed down the hallway stopping every few seconds to look a window in the doorways. His eyes moved quickly, ignoring the broken bodies on the floors of the cells, he had only come here for one thing. He almost missed her in his rush, the flash of red hair was in a room about halfway down the corridor.

Harry didn't even remember a spell when his hand grabbed the door, but the rush of magic compensated and the thick, metal door flew off its hinges and crashed to the floor. The small red haired body was curled in a corner. The bruises only visible on one arm. Harry turned away, he couldn't look at her, at his failure.

He turned to look down the hallway. "Hawkeye." He called and waved him over. The man was starring with a sick look on his face in a room near the beginning of the hallway. At Harry's call he came back to himself and rushed over.

"Oh god." Hawkeye gasped as he saw and smelled the cramped cell. He walked over the curled body and Harry handed him a jacket to put around her, one of the things he remembered to bring.

Harry backed away from the room unable to take any more.

He can't stop the flashbacks to Ginny's body, his mind betrayed him too much. Young Ginny, only fourteen years old when she had died, the first time any of the younger generation had really seen what Death Eaters would do if they had the chance.

Harry would never forget that day in March when he had walked into the Great Hall with the other student and saw the bloody body of Ginny hanging from the rafters. She was naked. Her orange hair glistened with the bloody dripping from it, like the rest of her body. It was carved up, sliced everywhere imaginable. Not just Ginny's childhood was lost that day. Harry forced himself to look upon the irreparably damaged body, to burn that image into his head. To force himself to remember what it would be like if he were caught, if any of his friends were caught. Harry found out what she went through, every single thing that had been done to her. He threw up multiple times, it was the last time he ever did.

After that, whenever he started questioning himself in the field, for killing or torturing or the many other unforgivable things he had to do, he remembered her hanging from the ceiling and forced himself to go on.

It was his fault then just like it is his fault now. He let it happen again, even after all of the promises that he made to himself. All of the friends that turned their backs on him were worth it, because he hadn't let any one of them get captured again. Until now.

Harry's eyes shift around the hallway, not going to get caught off guard. He turns just in time to see a group of five people enter the hallway. The one in lead is obviously a boss of some sort. Harry's vision goes red and he lets the rage that he has been pushing down for the last two weeks over come him.

He is almost invisible as he sprints down the hallway. Daggers are flying out of his hands before he knows what he is doing. The two men in the back go down before he even reaches the group. The first man he attacks is caught off guard and almost goes down as easily as the guard at the security station. The next one is a little more prepared. He gets in a punch of his own and take out a knife. Harry doesn't let him get any farther than that. A quickly cast tripping spell immediately disintegrates any of the skill he might have, the man is on the ground and bleeding in moments. The boss is looking scared now and holding a gun up to Harry's face.

Harry doesn't care, expelliarmus quickly removes the gun from him.

Harry pushes the man against the wall, his shirt clenched in a fist. He looks into the man's squinty eyes, the smugness that sits there urges Harry to just kill him now, but he doesn't. He has to know. He can't even look at Natasha, but right now he needs to know.

He needs to know every face, every name, every hit, punch, stab. Most of all, he needs to know who to pay back. He needs to know who to torture the longest. Who deserves the worst death. He needs to know like he needs to breathe. He paid back Ginny's killers, the bloody and tortured faces of Dolohov, Crabbe, and Goyle pop into his mind. He lost the trust of everyone around him doing it, but he couldn't let it go then and he wouldn't be able to let it go now.

The smug brown eyes that he's looking into quickly transform into terrified liquid pools. He knows what causes it. He can see his own red eyes reflected back at him. Some things just bring out the monster in him.

Most muggle minds are chaotic. They don't have the magic that organizes their thoughts for them. There are some exceptions of course, people that meditate have unusually tidy minds as well as certain genii, but Harry figures that's a trait of their IQ. The mind that he steps into, however, more closely resembles a landfill of memories, thoughts, and emotions. Normally Harry hates these types of minds, it is too easy to accidently screw up and mentally handicap a person if you can't tell where the mines are. He doesn't have that problem today though, he will feel no remorse tearing this man's mind apart. In fact, he might even feel a great sense of joy.

The faces and names of the people that hurt Natasha and so many others flash through his mind, Harry absorbs them all, but one sticks out, Boris. Harry knocks the man unconscious, not that it will help any, the man's mind is in pieces, Harry doubts he will ever be able to put himself back together. A sense of pleasure that doesn't really belong to him rushes up his spine.

Harry lets the body crumple to the floor and turns back to Natasha's room. Hawkeye is standing outside of it with Natasha in his arms. He has a stunned look on his face that Harry ignores. He walks up to them, letting his eyes rest on Natasha. Her red hair is stiff and caked in flecks of brown that Harry recognizes as dried blood. He ignores that and lets his hand fall upon her face. Her eyes open weekly.

"You..ca..came." Natasha coughs in the middle of it and her body doesn't stop shivering. Harry pushes down the rage, saving it.

"As if there was any doubt."

"D..don't..." Natasha coughs again and Harry rests his hand on her forehead.

"Stop talking, okay? Sleep." He caresses her face lightly as the sleep spell overcomes her. He doesn't know what she was going to say and frankly he didn't care. Harry's hard eyes focus on Hawkeye. "Get her out of here." Hawkeye looks surprised.

"But what about them?" He glances at the cell doors. Harry almost growls.

"Not your problem. Go back to the safe house and stay there until I arrive." Harry orders him. Hawkeye nods solemnly, but looks a little defiant.

"Hawkeye," Harry says slowly. "I am putting her life in your hands, if you betray that trust there is not a place on Earth you could hide from me. Do you understand?" Harry asks with a growl. Hawkeye's eyes harden as he nods and then starts jogging away. Harry watches him until Hawkeye turns out of sight and then he moves.

Boris is still in the building, he got that from the man's memories. There were also several other people in the building that deserved a bit of his time.

Harry apparated for the first time in three years.

The room that he appeared in held a fairly normal office and one large, blond Russian.

"Hello, Boris." Harry said with a hiss. The shocked man didn't have time to do anything before Harry's wand was on him. "Crucio."

The tortured and cracked screams filled the office as the Russian crashed to the floor. Harry let him writhe there for less than a minute. After all, he wanted Boris sane enough to understand exactly why he was being put through this.

* * *

In a dark room half a world away, two men sat looking at a screen. The images had been put on mute once the screaming began.

"Well, he is certainly inventive." The gruff voice said with amusement.

"Yes, I certainly think we got what we needed from this little venture. It was so nice of Mr. Chazov to provide the bait." A smooth voice replied.

"My yes, I think we should give him a raise." The gruff voice laughed a little. "I certainly think his powers are interesting enough. Do we send an invite?"

"Not yet. The red head is too much of a blind spot. If we can break them up..." The smooth voice trailed off as splatter of blood appeared on the screen. "He is certainly enthusiastic. It is very hard to get blood to spray like that."

"I like his spunk." The gruff voice chuckled again. "I vote yes."

"We test them a little more, and then we see." The smooth voiced man raised his hand and pressed a remote, switching the TV off. "I must say though, those red eyes are most intriguing. I do wonder how he got them."

* * *

AN: .DUN! I hope you like the chapter. The poll is still up, but it is kind of already decided. If you like the story please review.

If you notice any grammatical or spelling errors, please point them out I won't care, but will probably thank you.

Also, I'm thinking of doing a new thing so if you could please rate this on a scale of 1-10, 1 being sucky, sucky go throw yourself in a fire you terrible writer to 10 amazing, awesome I would bake you cupcakes and be you slave for a week for the next chapter. Thanks that would be nice.

Thanks for reading,  
~Rain


	6. Rule Number Four

Disclaimer: I do not break Hawkeyes or rules with the Avengers or Harry Potter.

* * *

**Rule Number Four**

* * *

Natasha hates waking up alone. This is probably a consequence of waking up in one too many cold empty shacks in the middle of Russian winters. She hates the feel of an empty room, cold without body heat even in the hottest deserts. It's not a fact she shares with people, just a result of how she grew up.

However, if there is one thing that Natasha hates more than waking up alone, it is waking up in a room with a stranger.

She knows the room she's in even with her eyes closed. Her senses tell her that she is lying on a double bed in some hotel room. The smell of the place and the feel of the sheets alone is enough to guess that. She knows how an empty room feels, knows it better than most. After all, she just spent what feels like the last month waking up alone in a cold concrete cell. She realizes that is probably hasn't been a month, but considering that she had been tortured she's allowed to exaggerate.

So, she knows what an empty room feels like, what it sounds like, what it smells like.

The hotel room that she wakes up in isn't empty. She knows the hotel room by the smell of the room and the feel of the sheets - she knows it's not empty by the soft sounds of breathing and the male sweat smell that is wafting from one corner of the room. She doesn't even have to consider the fact that it might be Harry there. She knows Harry better than she knew her own mother. She knows the sounds that he makes, what he smells like even covered in blood, knows the pressure that his presence in a room could cause, hell she even knows what he tastes like, which was a completely accidental licking no matter what Harry said. This man sitting in the corner of the hotel room is not Harry.

She hates waking up in a room with a stranger.

She doesn't tense her muscles or open her eyes, you don't give away the advantage of surprise when you have it. She catalogs what she can from her position on the bed. Takes estimates of how large the room is, how far away the man is, and what she has on her person that could be used as a weapon - not much. She then waits patiently and listens. There will be a second when the man will be distracted, vulnerable, it might happen if he receives a phone call or goes to the restroom. All she has to do is wait for it.

The problem is the man in the room with her seems to be even better waiting than she is. His breaths are soft and steady, but too quick for him to be asleep. He doesn't move, as far as she can tell though. He shifted once in his chair, only once - the quiet sound of fabric moving against fabric was like a blow horn to her ears.

Twenty minutes pass in similar silence and growing impatience.

Natasha has spent way too long in a cell as far as she's concerned. She has filled her allotment of cell time for the year, which means she will do just about anything to make sure she doesn't go there again.

She wonders if he is watching her. A good guard would watch even a sleeping prisoner, but most would get bored quickly and turn away. From the amount of time he has spent silent and not moving Natasha guesses that he is probably a professional. That makes her worry for a second before she pushes the feeling away.

Another five minutes pass before she promises herself that if she hears so much as squeak from the chair she's going to make her move.

Natasha wonders quietly to herself if she was always this impatient. It doesn't seem like a good trait to have. Her mind flashes back to a time on a train in Spain when Harry had admonished her for impatience. that was two years ago though, surely she would have learned better by now. After a minute of quiet contemplation she decides to blame it on the torture.

The professional part of her almost yells that see can't just blame everything on the torture, but the whiny little girl in her tells Black Widow to shut up and impale herself on a spear. Even her inner child has a fixation killing people. Long ago, when Black Widow, the professional, was still being made Natasha wondered if having a bunch of different versions of herself in her head made her crazy. The Widow ignored those nervous worries and informed the rest of her that it just made her better at her job. Black Widow didn't care for much beyond the job. Nattie, her inner child, often held this against her.

Natasha started to wonder if having different parts of yourself argue with each other makes her crazy when something stopped her contemplation.

The chair does squeak and, luckily enough, this time it seems like he is even getting up. Natasha spared a millisecond to be grateful, thinking for too long was a dangerous prospect for her. After that millisecond was up, she moved.

There is a certain finesse necessary to go from a completely relaxed state to a tensed and alert state. Never let it be said that Natasha didn't have finesse.

The time that it took for her to get out of the bed and onto floor was within a second. The eyes that snapped open took everything as fast as possible. She disregarded the information she already knew or didn't care about. They were in a hotel, two double beds, a Marriott by the sheets, there was a window to her right, at least five stories off the ground, no possible escape without injury, there were three bags on the floor next to the bed, one on the table that the man was just sitting at, a bow was on the table, the man in front of her had brown hair and surprised eyes - perfect.

Natasha moved quickly, a jump over the bed and there she was in front of the man - it was a small room. She settled herself and punched, despite how surprised he was not even a second ago, the man caught her wrist twisting a little. Not enough to stop Natasha, Harry had taught her how to get out of that hold three years ago. A twist and a knee up, a shift to the side saved the man's jewels, but caught him in the thigh, he grimaced, opened his mouth to say something. Natasha didn't let him, a slap to the side of the face to disorient and did those eyes look familiar? No time to figure it out the man grabbed her waist, trying to get rid of her leverage, she let him.

She wrapped her legs around his middle grabbed his shoulders with both hand and twisted, there wasn't much room to maneuver here, but she used what she had. Then suddenly, the man became unbalanced, his eyes widened a little as he fell backwards. The man tried to use the momentum to turn, put Natasha under him, she didn't let him.

They were on the ground, Natasha's hands moved to his neck and...wait...there was a bow on the table.

Natasha allowed her brain to catch up with her body. She knew this man, or at this knew of him. They had met once, briefly, he was enough to catch her interest. She made a file on him - what was his name again? - and she gave it to...

The door opened.

* * *

Harry opened the door to a strange sight, or maybe not, he did know Natasha well.

"If you guys need some alone time I can come back later." He laughs at his own joke because he knew nobody else would.

Natasha is on the ground kneeling about Hawkeye with her hands around his neck, it doesn't take much of an investigative leap for him to understand the circumstances of the situation, that doesn't mean he can't tease her about it.

Natasha's blank mask faces into place and she removes her hands from the man's neck. She stands up slowly, leaving the man on the ground. Hawkeye has apparently recovered enough of his sense to make a joke about it.

"Oh no, leaving so soon? Things were just starting to get fun." Harry bristles a little at that, but pushes that feeling away - it is more than a common occurrence. Nevertheless, his next statement probably came out a little cold because of it.

"Your services are no longer required. Thank you for your time." He holds out the bag he is carrying. It had the remainder of the money owned to Hawkeye in it. Hawkeye is a more than a little surprised at the abrupt dismissal, but he shakes it off quickly. He pops to his feet in a way that reminds Harry of a gymnast or a martial artist. The man is obviously skilled, and Harry feels a little bit of relief that he picked the right person even if he had to endure the man's comments.

Hawkeye grabs his bow off the table and bag off the floor. He nods to Harry as he heads to the door. Once there he stops for a second.

"Hey, I was just wondering, what happened to the rest of those people." Harry doesn't really know if he is taking about the employees or the prisoners of Ryder Industries, he doesn't care, the answer is the same for both.

"It's taken care of." Natasha stiffens behind him and Hawkeye nods. He opens the door, but before he can leave Natasha appears in front of him, Harry is only mildly surprised. There is a glint in her eyes that Harry thinks is familiar, but doesn't quite remember what it means.

Natasha looks Hawkeye straight in the eye and stares with that blank face of hers. After what seems like an hour of assessing she nods.

"Thank you." That is a surprise, Harry thinks, because he has never once heard her say it and actually mean it.

"Just doing my job, ma'am." He gives a poor mocking salute, money still in his hands. Natasha just nods because really there is nothing else to say. The door closes behind Hawkeye.

Harry casts a silencing ward around the room, what he knows will be said next is for their ears only. Despite his expectations the room falls into silence. Natasha turns around, but leans against the door staying away from Harry. Harry doesn't move, but to tuck his wand back into its sheath.

"I bought you a present." Harry breaks the silence awkwardly after a few minutes that seem to take a lifetime and dig the space between the two of them deeper. He hold out a box, Natasha doesn't move, but stares at it in shock. The silence between them deepens.

"Rule number four." Natasha says it softly while still looking at the box, somewhat similar to the way she looks at things she is about to kill. Harry grimaces a little he had forgotten about that for a second. He thinks about pulling it away, but doesn't.

"That's okay, rules are meant to be broken sometimes, on special occasions." Harry tells her. The rules had been great when they started three years ago, but were more than a little dated now.

"This is a special occasion?" Natasha asks.

"Isn't it?"

Natasha moves slowly across the room, like she would move towards a dangerous animal, still not sure if it would hurt her or not.

"I can take it back if you don't want it." Harry lies because whether Natasha wants it or not this present is going to be on her at all times if Harry has anything to say about it. He lies because he knows that will make Natasha want it more.

"No." Natasha says quickly, not a shout, but maybe a little frantic. She is in front of him then, closer than he thinks she really should be, not that he's complaining. She snatches the box from his hand with all of the grace of a half-starved man about to get some food.

"So this is a sorry-about-getting-you-tortured present?" Natasha asks Harry and backs away a reasonable distance, back to her usual emotionless state.

"More like a sorry-about-letting-you-get-captured present." Harry tells her with a grin even though he doesn't mean it. This is very much a I'm-very-glad-you-are-still-in-one-piece present. It is a present that was half forced by the old Harry, grateful that he didn't lose another friend under his watch. It is also a present forced by his paranoid side.

Natasha opens the box and looks confused. She pulls out the necklace like it is a cobra ready to bite her.

"Jewelry? You got _me_ jewelry."

"Yes, and no." Harry reaches over an plucks it from her hands. He pushes the top of it and pulls a little. The blade that comes of the small locket looks like it shouldn't even have been able to fit inside it. It is one of the many magical parts of the gift. "It is decretive to be inconspicuous. It's got a little bit of a charm to make people look the other way, but the appearance helps. The blade is sharp and unbreakable. For emergencies."

Harry doesn't tell her that it also has small protection charms and healing charms. He also doesn't tell her that it is an emergency portkey to take her to him immediately if he wants it to. That stuff is only for his piece of mind and while Natasha is more okay with magic than most it is still not something she would be comfortable wearing around her neck. He also doesn't tell her because that would be admitting to someone else just how much he really cares that she doesn't die. Harry had given up on caring years ago and yet Natasha had wriggled her way in.

"It's...nice. Thank you." For the second time since he has know Natasha she means it.

"Good." Harry says sharply and moves. "Now that's settled. I got us a job in Mexico City." He turns his back on Natasha and picks up and bag. She just need to get changed and they can go.

"Harry." Her tone stops him. "What happened to Boris?" Harry tenses and then forces himself to relax.

"I took care of it." Harry tells her without turning around.

"Harry." The voice is angry slightly, maybe, he can't really tell.

He laughs a little because he can't help it, but stops because it sounds a little too much like a megalomaniac dark wizard that tried to kill him.

"I took care of it." He says again because he can't tell her what really happened. He can't tell her about the red vision and the cackling of a dead man that filled his head. He can't tell her about coming back to himself in a room covered in body parts, most of which didn't belong to the same people.

"That was my job - my privilege." She says definitely angry now. That though didn't even occur to Harry, but of course Natasha would want revenge.

Harry had become so used to getting revenge for dead people that he forgot the possibility that she would want retribution as well. There wasn't anything he could do about it now though, it had taken him all of his energy just to take back control and exit that building before the Aurors arrived.

"I'm sorry." And he is, more than she will probably ever know. He is sorry to have taken that satisfaction from her. "I can find someone to take some punishment though, if you need some stress relief."

"It's not the same." She growls at him and Harry turns around to look at her again.

"I know, but it's the best it can do." Harry hands her the bag with her clothes in it. "There is a hot shower waiting for you, but we should move soon."

"Did you take care of the others?" Natasha asks with that same growl in her voice.

"Yes, the other prisoners are taken care of. Better than the US government would have at least."

"What do you mean?"

"I apperated all around that building. Aurors were bound to notice. I barely got out before they arrived. They would have taken the prisoners to a magical hospital until they could figure out what to do with them, but Natasha you have to realize most of those prisoners were criminals."

"Like me." She states as the blank mask falls over her face again. Harry doesn't flinch, but a part of him feels like he should.

"Like me as well. It could have been either of us down there."

"No. It couldn't have." Natasha turns away from him then an heads for the bathroom. Harry doesn't reply because there is nothing to say. There's has always been a completely equal partnership, their skill sets just lay in different places.

Harry sits on the bed with a thump, still a little exhausted from the days that he just had and the days that he knows are about to come.

"Did you get them all?" The soft voice surprises him. Natasha is standing in front of the doorway to the bathroom, her back turned to him, but something seems different in her posture to the one he is familiar with.

Maybe she is asking because she still wants a piece for herself, or maybe she is asking because a part of her - the still hurt part - wants to make sure that they can't hurt her again.

"Yes." The answer is the same either way.

Natasha nods and enters the bathroom, a second later the water turns on. Harry falls against the bed and lets body rest. There is still much to do today. He has to make sure that she is completely healed by the potions that he had stuffed down her throat earlier and he has to figure out their escape plan from the country. He lets himself rest - there is still a lot to do today.

* * *

AN: Hello again, friend of a friend. This is shorter than my previous posts, but I hadn't updated in a while and I know I need to. I have gotten busy, _very busy_. My school started again and as a senior in college I am more than a little overwhelmed.

I also started playing Guild Wars 2 because I hate productivity. It's awesome, but bad for me.

If you liked the story you know what to do. Also, please point out any grammatical or spelling errors that you spot. Thank you.

~Rain

PS: I don't know when I will update next, but I haven't forgotten this story I still have lots of ideas.

PPS: I haven't read the comics, the Black Widow that I have created is my own interpretation of what the movie showed. I hope you don't hate it.


	7. Michael Hollander

Disclaimer: In which I don't own anything, but like to torture them anyway.

* * *

**Michael Hollander a.k.a. Ares**

* * *

It's not like Harry hates his job. It's just that he has been doing it for too long for it to be as interesting or entertaining as when he first started. It has become ordinary, met client - kill target - receive money, the three step process of his job. It is a comfort almost, a safety blanket.

Some people would be surprised at how easy it is to kill others. Most people aren't expecting to get assassinated when walk down a street. They are comfortable in their lives, accustomed to the city they live in, the life they lead, they have taken into account all of the known dangers and think themselves safe - invincible. Harry has been doing his job long enough to know that no one is invincible, even himself. Humans instinctively trust the people that are around them not to kill them suddenly, this is a mistake. Harry knows that he can't trust anyone around him, except perhaps Natasha.

He and Natasha fit together like any partners that had been together as long as they had. So, it was easy after the kidnapping and subsequent rescue to go back to what they knew, their old standby.

The problem is that things aren't like they were before the kidnapping.

Something has changed in their partnership, something integral, but subtle. They don't quite fit together the way that they used to. The puzzle pieces still fit, but a few have to be forced in. It's the small things that Harry notices first. Natasha is a little too quick while fighting and it throws off his balance when he is standing next to her, almost like she doesn't trust him to cover her. The next job as Natasha running off into the middle of nowhere with the target and then expecting Harry to know where she went, like she expects him to read her mind. Harry shrugs it off as back to work jitters, nothing to worry about. Then, when a mission finally goes right for the duo, Natasha starts kicking in her sleep, something she hasn't done for almost three years.

Something has definitely changed, but Harry has no clue what it is. It is the most frustrating thing that Harry has had to worry about since the war.

Harry leans on the back two legs of his chair idly, studying his partner. Natasha is lounging on the bed in their current home-away-from-home, a hotel in Dubai. She's seventeen now and reading a beauty magazine. If Harry ignores the five knives on the bedside table and the dash of blood right under her left ears that she somehow missed, Harry thinks she almost looks like a normal teen. He shakes the thought from his head, he has no idea what a normal teen is supposed to look like, he was never around any.

They had two clients this time. The first was the job that they just finished, an angry wife had requested her cheating husband's bits to be cut before the deed was done. Natasha had happily filled this part of the request with an enthusiasm that Harry found disturbing.

The second they were going to meet later in the day. Harry leaned back a little more and tipped the chair to the side, balancing it on one leg. He needed to stop worrying about it really. Whatever was going on between Natasha and him would even out or it wouldn't, either way there was not use worrying about it.

Harry glanced at the clock on the bedside table and let the chair fall back into place.

"It's time." Natasha looked up from her magazine and nodded. The next minute was spent resetting their weapons and warming up. After Jason Mallory they never went to a client meeting without warming up first. Natasha sprang up from her split and nodded to Harry, it was time to go.

They were wearing somewhat casual clothing, jeans, baggy shirts and jackets. Enough room to hide weapons without it being obvious. Normally they would be more dressed to impress, but the client had set up the meeting place and told them what to wear to blend in.

Harry and Natasha walked their way to the meeting mostly in silence. Sunglasses hiding eyes that scanned the area for hostiles. So maybe they were paranoid, but all it took was one time and they could be gone, the kidnapping had taught them that.

The city was filled with construction, skyscrapers were going up everywhere which made the two block walk take almost twenty minutes. They reached the restaurant at the exact time the client had requested. Not even a minute later they were sitting in one of the alcoves in the back. Harry took off his glasses and scanned the room. He didn't spot any cameras, but that didn't meant there weren't any. The room was rather empty, but at 2:00 on a weekday afternoon he didn't exactly expect a rush.

After two minutes of waiting Natasha took out one of her smaller knives and started twirling it around - a nervous habit - late clients were good for anyone.

At five minutes after the bell atop the door rang and a harried looking man rushed in. He barely nodded to the hostess before looking to their table and walking over. As he walked he straighter out his tie and brushed himself off a little.

Harry and Natasha were used to weird clients, only strangle people hired assassins after all, but this guy was different somehow. He looked like a expensive secretary or personal assistant. The pin stripe suit was slightly faded, but looked expensive. His brown hair was tidy and glasses covered sharp hazel eyes

"Sorry about that, just a little bit of extra work threw my entire schedule off." He pushed his glasses up and pulled a file out of his messenger bag. Harry and Natasha knew how clients tended to act around them, slightly scared, maybe arrogant, tense, nervous - this man wasn't acting anything like that. He was calm, too calm. Natasha and Harry glanced at each other.

"Mr. Klein..." Harry started.

"Larry, please, my father is Mr. Klein." He fanned his face slightly. "I still haven't gotten used to the weather around here. Honestly why the company decided to set up an office here I'll never know. Alright, where were we?" Larry opened the folder and nodded to himself. "Right, this is the job." He passed the folder to Natasha.

Natasha's face remained emotionless, but her slight shift gave away her shock, when she shared the folder with Harry he understood why.

"Mr. Klein, you are aware of who this person is aren't you?" Harry asked staring straight into Larry's eyes. Normally this caused someone to stutter or flinch, Harry had been told his eyes had an unnerving quality. Larry stared back sharply, not backing down.

"Yes, we are fully aware of this, that is in fact why we want him dead." He pushed up his glasses again and broken Harry's gaze to look at the file pointedly. "Mr. Hollander, alias Ares, was hired by the company to take care of a small problem. We paid him the customary upfront fee to find that not only did he not take care of the man, he in fact told the man of his job and helped the target take out the employer, one of our finest. Needless to say, this has annoyed us. My boss wanted it taken care of as soon as possible and since this is the first time he has popped back up on the grid and you were the nearest possible fixes." He trailed off. "Well, here we are."

Harry turned to Natasha with the question in his eyes. Did they really want to take this job? It could set a dangerous precedent. Killing someone in the same profession as them could make them some enemies, not a lot, but a few. There was also the question of if they could do it. Ares was fairly well known in the business, which meant he had some kind of skill. He was generally know for using a sword on his targets and his rather classical looks. Natasha had once commented that only someone who took themselves a little too seriously would use the name of a pagan god.

Natasha seemed a little far away, but focused back on him after a minute and nodded. She was in if he was.

"It seems that we are available." Harry nodded to him.

"Good, good. My boss will be happy to hear that." He straightened up and patted his bag. "It was a pleasure. This is my card, in case of emergencies." He stood up from the table. "I hope you have a pleasant day." He nodded again and exited the building quickly leaving a slightly stunned Harry and Natasha behind.

"Was this really a good idea?" Harry heard Natasha muttering to himself and could only nod in agreement. He placed his sunglasses back on and stood up, Natasha followed.

It took them only ten minutes to return to their hotel and lock their door. Natasha spread the folder out on the table and sat down with a sigh in one of the chairs.

"Ares..." She said mindlessly, still stunned. This was the first time they had ever been hired to kill someone like him...someone like them.

"You said yes." Harry replied gruffly, looking over the papers. This would be tough.

"I know, but still, Ares was around even before you and me. Chances are he is better than us, I mean you don't survive without some skills, or help. Either way this could turn out badly for us. We have to be careful not to be seen by him." She rubbed her eyes a little. "We don't even know if he is still in the city. The last picture that Klein had on him was taken a day ago. He could have already finished his job and left."

"Let's work under the assumption he hasn't left yet." Harry looked away as his phone buzzed slightly. He still wasn't used to having it around, but it proved useful in some situations. He glanced at the text. "The money is in the account."

Natasha whistled softly. "Don't waste any time do they."

Harry pushed the phone away. "Assuming that the man hasn't left yet, where do we start?"

"The same place we start with every target I would guess. What is their routine?" Natasha answered him.

"This will be harder than the average target, but not that much. Everyone has a routine on their job." Natasha and Harry glanced at each other again. What routines did they have that they didn't know about? Natasha shook her head and stood up.

"So, routines... if he has one then we can catch him." She started pacing. "How can we possibly figure out his routines? We could look up old targets of his, but we wouldn't be able to tell anything except his preferred mode of killing, which we already know to be sword. The real information would be what sort of shelter does he use, hotels or apartments. What sort of targets does he take, long term or short term?"

"Long term." Harry cut in. Natasha turned to him.

"How do you know?"

"I overheard a conversation awhile ago, someone was talking about how they turned down a job because it required too much time commitment and heard Ares had taken it instead."

"Okay, long term tells us he is probably still in the city. It also tells us he would pick an apartment instead of a hotel." Natasha thought out loud.

"If we did long term targets we would chose a middle of the road apartment. Expensive enough to avoid bugs in the kitchen, but no doorman or security to keep track of coming and going."

"It would have to be close to public transportation. People in poor apartments don't usually have their own cars." Natasha took over for him. "He would have been here less than a month. I get the feeling that Mr. Klein's company is very interested in getting him gone. Which means they are actively looking for him and would have found him in the city as soon as he showed up." She sighed and took off her jacket. "This means recon."

Harry nodded and followed. Recon meant looking for the apartment building that Ares was using, which meant a lot of walking and in this heat, a lot of sweating.

* * *

Buzz. Buzz.

Harry retrieved the phone from his pocket and put it up to his ear.

"You've found it?" Harry didn't bother saying hello or asking who it was, only one person had this number and that was Natasha.

"Yeah and only after four hours." Harry could hear the smugness in her tone, she would be holding this over him for months.

"Where?"

"It's in the middle of the city really. The name is something in Arabic. I've give you directions." After writing down the address that she gave him, he started walking again. "Turns out he has been living here for almost three months, it seems Mr. Klein doesn't know as much as he seems. The owner says he paid for three months upfront and has been a model tenant. He doesn't make much noise and seems to always leave out the back because she never sees him leaving, only coming back in on some days. She thinks he must have a hands on job because he is always carrying a large black carrying case and wearing casual clothes. She says she has only seen him dress up once and that he was 'quite the looker'."

Harry let her continuing talking until he saw her down the street. She nodded to him and they hung up.

"What's the game plan?" She asked him, looking at the short apartment building in front of him. "He is room 329." She pointed to a window next to a fire escape. "Apparently, he isn't in right now."

"More information from the owner?" Harry asked with a smirk.

"She was a very talkative old lady, I just provided the listening ear. He left two hours ago as far as I can tell. We going in?" Her emotionless mask was back on, it was time to work.

Harry nodded and entered the building. Natasha nodded with a smile to the lady at the front desk who smiled back at her. The smile disappeared as they entered the staircase. It wouldn't be that hard to sneak into the room and wait for him, but they would have to be careful not to tip him off to their presence. If Ares even suspected that his apartment had been compromised then he would leave before even entering.

It only took a minute for them to walk up the stairs and find the door they need. As Harry knelt down to pick the door Natasha looked hard at it. Different people had different ideas of traps, security, and warnings. She tapped him on the shoulder once and pointed to one of the door edges.

"Tape." On the edge of the door was a colored piece of tape that would rip whenever the door was opened. Harry nodded. That was a fairly easy fix. Natasha stretched a little but was able to pull the piece from the door without it showing. She looked at the door again searching for a second warning trap before nodding to him.

Harry opened the door to the room.

It was mostly what they expected. The furniture was from a previous owner he was sure, the room wasn't messy or lived in. The paint on the walls was cracked a bit and the appliances looked older, a fairly inexpensive apartment. Harry stepped around the rug in front of the door as Natasha bent to check underneath. A few pieces of cereal were sprinkled there, they would have been crushed if anyone stepped on them.

Harry nodded and continued into the room, hands in his pockets, making sure not to touch anything. Natasha's eyes scanned the room taking in everything, cataloging so if they needed to they could put everything back exactly as they found it.

"Bedroom." Harry motioned to the open door in the room. A made bed could be seen inside, along with a few pictures pasted to a wall. That got him curious.

He didn't waste any time entering the bedroom. The bed looked untouched, but there was an open case in front of it. Harry was drawn to the pictures taped to the wall first. Chances were those held his current target. It didn't take Harry took long to recognize the face in the pictures.

"Widow." Harry called out to her. They were on the job after all.

"What?" Natasha's head poked into the room, glancing at everything before him and the pictures on the wall. Her eyes widened. "Is that..."

Harry nodded a glare in his eyes, this made things more complicated. "Larry Klein."

"It's a long term target right? That means we just have to get him soon. That shouldn't be too hard, we already got his apartment, just wait for him to get home and..." She trailed off as she glanced into the case at the bottom of the bed. "That might be a problem." The emotionless voice caused Harry to turn, something else was wrong. Harry walked over and looked into the case.

Five slots were in the case, they held identical swords. The problem was that only four swords were in the case, which meant.

"We need to find Mr. Klein. Now!" Harry rushed out of the bedroom and into the hallway, Natasha right behind him. No longer worried about leaving behind clues of their visit. The most important thing was Mr. Klein's safety - because dead clients couldn't pay you.

Harry tugged a card out of his pocket along with his phone. The number was punched in quickly, while rushing down the stairs.

"Shit!" Harry cursed as the call went to voicemail. "Where would he be?"

"The hospital." Natasha said quickly. Harry stopped at the bottom step and stared at her. Natasha was holding a piece of paper that he had seen in the room. "Apparently, he has regular appointment at a hospital not too far from here. Something about a genetic disease."

They hit the street running, Natasha started waving at the street. It took less than a minute for a cab to pull up beside them. Harry didn't know if it was just because they regularly patrolled this area or because Natasha looked the way she did.

"The hospital, please!" The frantic tone in Natasha's voice made the cabby wake up a little and stare at her. "Please! Hospital." She spoke slowly and showed him the piece of paper she carried out of the room, it had a picture of the hospital on it. The cabby nodded and the sped away, a little too slow for Harry's frame of mind, but unless he wanted the entire international federation of wizards to come down on him apparating wasn't going to happen.

As they parked in front of the hospital entrance Harry handed him some currency to cover the trip and then exited as fast as Natasha had. Natasha was already in the hospital entrance room scanning frantically. She didn't even notice his as she turned down a hall and started running, Harry following a step behind.

The hospital seemed like an endless mess of corridors and rooms. Natasha's eyes never seemed to stop flicking from one spot to another taking in everything she could.

"Where is it?" He heard her muttering. She stopped suddenly in front of a door. Harry barely had enough time to avoid running into her. "Here."

Harry didn't even have time to glance at the name on the door before Natasha was pushing it open.

Klein was sitting on an exam table with his shirt partially removed when they entered. Apparently, the exam had just ended because he was buttoning it up.

"What..."

"No time." Natasha grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the door. Harry settled behind them in step, eyes moving everywhere now, on the lookout for the sword wielding Ares.

"Black Widow..." Klein was obviously still in shock because he was just staring at her with surprised eyes as she pulled him along.

Natasha opened her mouth to respond when Harry saw him.

"Incoming." Ares was a well defined caramel colored man. He looked close to 6'5" in height and Harry could immediately see why he named himself after a Greek god. There was a sword on his hip, but no one in the hallway seemed to notice it. "Move."

Natasha pulled open the door to the stairwell and started moving down, pulling Klein with her.

"Is that?" Klein sounded more than a little shocked now and slightly scared.

"Yes, and if you don't shut up he will find us." Natasha pulled open the door to the basement with a slam and then they were running down slightly darker hospital hallways.

Harry heard the slam of a door opening and shutting behind him and the pounding of footsteps. He was catching up, Klein was slowing them down. Harry kept one eye behind them, the footsteps getting ever closer.

"Fuck!" Natasha's curse caused Harry to look at her sharply. They had reached a dead end. Natasha pushed Klein behind her and stood next to Harry. "Don't fucking do anything." She spat that Klein, regardless of the fact that it wasn't exactly his fault.

They didn't even have a minute before Ares turned the corner and they caught full sight of the sword that he held. Seemingly a replica of ancient Greek style of swords it made him look more than impressive and intimidating. Natasha pulled out a gun and Harry a dagger, he had never been completely comfortable carrying around a gun when he didn't have to, unlike Natasha.

"Hello, hello." Ares said from his end of the hall walking towards them.

Natasha didn't answer. She just shot.

The man standing across from them turned faster than they could follow. The bullet sped right past him and into a piece of metal piping. A barely audible hiss seemed to release from it.

"Now, that wasn't very nice. We haven't even introduced ourselves. I'm Ares." He motioned flamboyantly to himself without removing his eyes from their weapons. "The person who is going to kill you today."

"Don't get ahead of yourself." Natasha scoffed at him.

Ares flashed them a too white smile. His eyes scanning them quickly. Harry recognized that look instantly, it was the one he was wearing now. They were cataloging each other's weaknesses, deciding who was the most threat, how to hit first and win. Ares eyes seemed to brighten as he noticed Harry's uncovered arms.

"My, my, the famous Basilisk, which means you must be the gorgeous Black Widow. Is that right?" His charming smile was sharp. "Your reputation precedes you."

"As does yours." Harry answered him.

"How disappointing that we have found ourselves on opposing sides. I think I would very much like to get to know you better." His eyes oozed over Harry's body and made him feel more than uncomfortable.

"I'm glad then. I get to kill you without remorse." Harry tossed one of his daggers lightly, testing Ares's reflexes.

"This was just starting to get interesting too." Ares's grin widened as he dodged. "Oh well."

Before Natasha or Harry could even react Ares was moving, rushing them. Harry stepped in front of Natasha and parried the sword hit away with his dagger, pushing it off course slightly. The man was a master of his craft though, and didn't even slow down. He swung the blade around, forcing Harry to jump over it and try to stab down with his dagger. He was stopped by a sudden boot to the chest, pushing him away. Harry's body hit the back wall with a loud thump. This guy was stronger and faster than they had first imagined, or even seemed possible.

Natasha dodged the blade, moving around him quickly trying to get into his personal space to make the shot. Ares wasn't giving her any leeway though, every step she made forward caused him to slide by her a little.

Harry picked himself up off the floor and pulled out more daggers. He threw them in quick succession trying to distract him enough to give Natasha an opening. Every blade he threw was deflected by the fast moving sword. The few darts of venom he threw ended up the same. Natasha wasn't getting close enough to him to hit him with anything.

Harry didn't stop though, any opening would save their lives. He circled the man, trying to flank him to no avail.

Time to change the rules.

Harry flew towards Natasha and gestured. Natasha moved quickly and suddenly they were right next to each other, moving in sync. Every thrust he did made her slash, forcing the man to have to deflect both of them at once. It took forever, the man's speed was unnatural, but slowly the tide started to turn. They pushed him back, forcing him to remain purely on the defensive to give nothing away.

They were close, Harry could tell. They were going to get him soon.

Then it happened. They faltered, Natasha stumbled.

He went up and she went up, when she was supposed to go down and then there was an opening.

The inhuman speed of the blade caught Natasha in the side, opening a gash in her side, but she moved quick enough for it not to be fatal. Harry was once again kicked, this time he heard one of his ribs crack as he flew back behind Klein, leaving him open for attack.

Time seemed to slow down. Ares was approaching Klein, who was scrambling back away from the inhuman sword. Ares pushed him over with a foot. He rested a foot on Klein's neck forcing him into a vulnerable position. The sword was raised, angled downward at Klein's exposed chest, shirt still unbuttoned.

Harry took a deep breath and noticed something. The air was heavier somehow, that wasn't right.

Harry's eyes moved past Klein and Ares, past Natasha's gun focused on Ares back, to the pipe at the end of the hall. The pipe that Natasha had dented in her first missed shot. Harry recognized the sticker on the pipe - pressurized oxygen. That wasn't odd. Of course, there was oxygen it was a hospital. The _hiss_ of the escaped gas filled his ears until was all he could here.

Wait, Natasha's gun was focused on Ares's back.

Oxygen was flammable.

Harry didn't think. He moved. Time stood still. Harry didn't need to say the words to the summoning charm, he knew it better than almost anything. The magic escaped him. It sped towards Natasha and Klein, it pulled. A great tug and Natasha and Klein were flying towards Harry, but it didn't matter because Natasha's finger pressed the trigger.

Natasha missed. It didn't matter.

The explosion of flames around them blocked everything out, the flash of light and heat and noise. Natasha was next to him, that was all that mattered.

The shield flickered into existence around them almost a second too late.

Time was still moving too slow. Harry never really wanted to know what a person looked like as they exploded into a million pieces - red mist - he knew now. The flames crashed against the walls, against the shield.

Harry apparated.

They were in a restaurant.

Time went back to normal.

* * *

Harry pulled the sheets over Natasha's still form. The stitches in the sword wound were covered by a large bandage and she was as clean as he could get her while she was unconscious. He pushed some of her red curly hair out of her face. She looked so innocent like this - too innocent. He turned away from the sight and settled on the other occupant of the room.

Larry Klein was shaking. He was slightly singed and soot covered. His glasses were smeared after he tried rubbing them on his even dirtier shirt.

Harry pulled out two bottles from his bag and threw one to Klein. Always come prepared. He tossed a bottle opened to the man next and Klein's trembling fingers caught it.

"Tha.." Klein coughed and cleared his throat. "Thank you."

"It's just a beer." Harry plopped down in a chair and leaded back, balancing on two legs.

The slightly hysterical laugher that forced its way out of Klein's throat didn't even cause Harry to pause. He waited for Klein to get a hold of himself and open the beer. They took a few drinks in silence.

"How are you so..."

"Calm?" Harry cut him off. "It's my job. It's what you hired me for."

Klein shook his head. "_That _is not what I hired you for."

Harry shrugged. "Above and beyond the call of duty." Harry didn't mention the fact that they wouldn't have gotten paid if he ended up dead, or the fact that he wasn't even really planning on bringing Klein on the jump. Act as if everything went according to plan, because if you were alive it probably did.

Klein coughed and took another drink. Every sip seemed to pull him back together more and more. Klein straightened up in his chair, his hand stopped trembling.

"You saved my life." Klein said very matter of fact. Harry shrugged. "I owe you." Harry shrugged again, but nodded it was true after all. You never turn down a debt.

"You can pay me back." Harry said after a sip of his beer.

Klein cleared his throat. "No, that won't do." Harry looked at him inquisitively. "I don't like owing people, Basilisk. So, I think I will pay up front." Harry's eyes widened a little.

"You have some information I want?" Harry asked the man, dubious. The man was a personal assistant to the vice president of a insurance company, they didn't exactly run in the same circles. Klein turned to Natasha, staring at her still form.

"You care for her, don't you?" Harry stiffened. That wasn't even a question he answered when he asked it to himself. Klein turned back to him and stared into the glaring eyes, forcing Harry to see he was telling the truth. "So people are going to try and recruit you soon." Harry's eyes widened. "They aren't the sort of people you say no to. They are the sort of people that you don't want as an enemy."

Harry relaxed again, emotionless. "We'll deal with it when they come." That wasn't the sort of information that got you out of a favor.

Klein shook his head again. "No, I said they were recruiting you, _just_ you." He glanced at Natasha's still form again. "These aren't the sort of people that like baggage."

Harry's eyes sharpened to blades as Klein stood up and drained the rest of his bottle. He nodded to Harry again.

"For what it's worth, thank you again." Klein turned toward the door and left, never looking back.

Harry sat completely still looking at the door for fifteen minutes before he moved.

A loud thump sounded as something hit the door, it was quickly followed by the sound of breaking glass.

* * *

"Director." A nervous man in a indistinctive uniform spoke. The one eyed man turned to the nervous individual.

"What is it?" He asked roughly.

"Sir, Agent Hollander's body was found after an explosion in a Dubai hospital." The one eyed man focused his harsh gaze on the quivering man.

"What was Agent Hollander's mission there?"

"He was following one of the S-2 targets who was under the alias Larry Klein." The Director grunted and stood up.

"Alright, I want a team readied at gone in an hour. Let's find out exactly what this man was up to and who killed our agent."

"Um...about that?" The shaking man said quietly.

"What it is agent?" The Director asked impatiently.

"We received communication from Agent Hollander only a few hours before the explosion. He sent this picture." The man held out a trembling hand with the picture.

The picture was of a table in a restaurant. On one side of the table was the target Larry Klein. On the other side of the table were two individuals, a man and a woman. They were both wearing jackets, which was odd with the hot weather in Dubai. The woman was also wearing sunglasses and appeared to be younger than the man. The Director would guess she was in her late teens, which made the picture even weirder.

"Do we know who these people are?"

"We...um...think so. The man...he has...a mark right here." The man pointed to the neck of the man. A thin black line was peeking out of the collar. "There is only one known individual that we are following that has...that kind of...mark. He goes by Basilisk. He's been on the field for almost four years, we have no information on his background. He has...um...partnered with someone though. That's who we think the...girl is, Black Widow. She appeared a little after Basilisk started on the international stage, but seemed to have been floating around Russia before that." The man stopped talking and backed away.

"Interesting." The Director said, almost to himself, and waved the man away.

He would have to think about this.

* * *

AN: Hello again, friend of a friend. Here's the next chapter. Once again, if you spot any obvious mistakes you can just tell me and I'll fix it.

Since I am approaching 500 reviews on this fic I thought I would try something. I have never done a prompt before and I think it would be fun to try. So, whoever sends in the 500th review can request a oneshot from me. Anything you want, so long as I know the fandom. No promises to it being the next holy grail of fanfiction, but I'll do my best.

I hope you enjoyed this.

~Rain


	8. Gregor 'TANK' Hubbrus

**Disclaimer: **'IT's ALIVE!' The story, that is, but I still don't own the rights to either of the properties. Yeah, that sounds about right.

* * *

**Gregor 'TANK' Hubbrus**

* * *

"You would like us to kill who?" Natasha asked with an incredulity that Harry didn't remember ever having heard before.

The laptop in front of them flashed the name TANK at the top of the screen. The pictures underneath the title showed the seven foot tall man holding a rocket launcher in both arms.

"Come now, I know this isn't a first. You are well versed in killing your rivals." The slimy voice across the table from them perfectly fit the man. The slicked back hair and brown eyes that held only malicious intent. The man had insisted on meeting at a restaurant in town with two bodyguards following him - not that it would help if Natasha or Harry had it in their minds to kill him.

The worst part was this new form of client wasn't even unusual for them anymore. After they had killed Ares, a.k.a. Michael Hollander, they had been inundated with similar requests. There weren't many rules in the business of killing people, but it was still unusual to be able to hire people that would kill others in their own profession. Harry and Natasha had become a novelty to clients, but hated everywhere else.

It wasn't unusual for them to be glared at and avoided in Markets. Their reputation had become bigger than Harry had ever wanted again and it was starting to get on his nerves.

"Just because we aren't opposed to killing our own kind doesn't mean we take every job." Harry told the man with a sneer.

TANK was a well known mercenary for hire. His type of aggressive personality made everyone want to hit him within a minute of meeting him - his reputation of killing anyone who did warded off most people. His overconfidence and pride made him think he could get away with almost anything, but that didn't mean he didn't have some skills to back it up. The man's size was only the tip of the iceberg of the shit storm that was TANK. He had been classically training in boxing and wrestling. He then went into the military to get sent off in a number of missions which always had a higher body count than they were supposed to. It was this fact that got him kicked out of the military and put into mercenary work. He spent the rest of his life honing his skills until he decided to go off and start a mercenary crew of his own. His crew turned into one of most well known in the business for getting the job done, and getting it done bloody. The man's success in business if anything made him a harder man to be around because his ego had swelled to an unsustainable size.

Harry and Natasha had met him exactly once, for about a minute, and then turned around and jumped a plane out of the country. It wasn't because they were scared of him, but at the time Natasha was a newly minted fifteen year old and Harry had broken his collarbone the previous week. They decided to retreat instead of having to put up with him for another minute when they would be able to kill him. It was a lesson they had both learned in the years before their partnership - never pick a fight you couldn't win.

"I don't..."

"We'll take it." Harry spun to look at Natasha after her interruption.

"_What?_" He hissed the question at her.

"I am so glad to hear it." The slicked man pulled a stack of bills from his greasy pocket and put them on the table - _unprofessional_, was the only thought that shot through Harry's head. He let a slight glare show through his eyes at her, but otherwise made no move to pick up the stack.

"It was a pleasure to meet you." Natasha put her hand into the greasy palm of the client and Harry had to resist the urge to pull her away and scold her.

"What are you thinking?" Harry whispered more to himself than to the rest of the table.

"The pleasure was all mine." The man pressed his lips to the back of Natasha's hand and Harry narrowed his eyes and hissed softly. It took all of his willpower not to spring across the table and stab him in the throat. He allowed himself to fantasize about the man's cut throat oozing blood and staining the table and floors, covering the legs of the nearby chairs. Harry shook himself out of the daydream and back to the real world of revolting clients and partners that acted without approval.

Harry's lip curled back slightly. It had been almost three months since Dubai and Ares and _Klein;_ the vicious thoughts slipped to the forefront of his mind. Three months since the warning and Harry knew that time was running short. His gut was attacking him every night now and his had to push away the ominous premonitions almost hourly. Something was going to happen soon, and it wasn't going to be good.

Natasha's own rebellious attitude didn't help a single thing. Their once tight and fluid partnership had devolved into daily squabbles and fights over nothing. Harry figured the constant travel was getting to her, because switching continents every week could be exhausting on the body clock.

Harry watched absentmindedly as the slimy client slid from the room.

"That was a good..."

"What were you thinking?" Harry hissed at her, allowing his anger to show.

Natasha's eyes flashed. "You weren't going to take it." She said almost accusingly.

"No." Harry almost spat at her. "I wasn't."

"I wanted to." She said in a flippant tone that made Harry want to slam her into a wall to knock some sense into her.

"Not so long ago I was in a partnership that took into account the desires of both of its occupants."

Natasha shined, "Funnily enough, I remember that too."

Harry growled and slammed his hands on the table as he stood, "Stop attacking like such a child!"

"OH, I'm a _child_ now? When did that happen?" She stood up herself, angrily standing across from him.

"Natasha." An exasperated sigh escaped him. He rubbed his eyes and tried not to feel as if the world was crushing him. At twenty-one years old he had never had an easy life, but these past few weeks of constant fighting with Natasha, his supposed partner, had exhausted him.

"Harry." Natasha growled back at him, still trying to pick a fight.

"Maybe it's time split ways." Harry didn't look at her face - he couldn't force himself to. The small gasp that came from her direction told him exactly what Natasha thought of that idea. His mental shoulders slumped, there was going to be no easy break for them.

"Is that what you want?" The shaky tone of Natasha's voice told him just how much emotion she had to be feeling for some of it to escape in her voice.

"No." Harry answered firmly and turned back to her. "No, Natasha, I don't want to spilt up. We have worked together for three and a half years now. You are my closest ally and friend, you know much about me that no one else does."

"And you know more than anyone else about me." Natasha said softly, her eyes searching for something on his face - a clue to his true thoughts.

"I don't want to leave you." The truth slipped unbidden from his lips. He body betrayed him farther by stepping closer to her, close enough to touch.

The entire room seemed frozen, the two of them alone in an empty restaurant - emptied by their _client_. Harry couldn't resist the urge.

He stepped closer.

His hand didn't belong to his body, it had been possessed by a less cynical man.

He touched her cheek - warm, soft, blushing. It seemed her body was betraying her as well as she leaned into the hand. Her own rose to cover his.

Wide hazel eyes stared into darkened green ones.

Her lips opened slightly - full, red, wet. His own eyes seemed magnetized there, he couldn't look away.

He leaned in closer, because maybe just once the world could wait. He could be in this moment and savor it and nothing would...

"Oops, sorry." The squeaking of the owner of the restaurant entering the room broke the hypnosis. Time that once seemed frozen, fractured.

His hand escaped her face as if it had been burn, his legs scurried backyard and his body turned away.

"I apologize for the wait miss, we were just finishing up here." Harry nodded gratefully to the woman and slipped past her and onto the street. He took a deep breath and centered himself.

It was cold in Chicago, the noise that came with city living overpowered his racing mind. The sound of trains on tracks above him rattling, complementing the distant honking of car horns. There was a music to city life that people that lived there took as background noise. One thing that Harry had learned on his travels was that everyone of them was different. No two cities ever sounded the same and all had their own mesmerizing quality.

He breathed in the stiff air of the city.

"We have to do this job now." Natasha's voice was normal, unbroken or cracked. The mask was back on, but that was okay it was familiar company to him.

"Yes, we do." Harry answered just the same - confident, nonchalant, apathetic. Nothing had happened after all, no need to make a fuss over nothing. "You accepted it after all."

She didn't apologize, but her shoulder's shrugged and Harry nodded in acceptance. It wasn't in their nature to truly apologize for anything, their profession had no place for it.

Besides, he hadn't liked TANK anymore than she did, what was one more mark added to an already covered body. What was one more scar to the masterpiece of his skin. He rubbed his arm absentmindedly - a nervous tick.

"The file said he was in the city." Business as usual.

"Most likely true, if I remember correctly the headquarters for his mercenary company is here." Harry took in the skyscrapers because there was no reason not to be a tourist while you could.

"Black Hull Securities, I believe, or something equally as garish." She answered from beside him, a reasonable distance yet for some reason it felt farther than normal.

"The trouble with this job is that the man knows our faces and I doubt we will be so lucky that he doesn't know our current reputation."

"He'll be surrounded by bodyguards."

"Not that it will stop us, but they will be just as well informed as he is about threats. Which means we will have to fool his security as well as him." Harry took another deep breath. "This job is getting harder by the second."

"You're letting your apprehension show."

Harry spared a glare for her, "I'm being realistic."

"Be careful or your realism may start to sound like an old nanny." She said prickly, letting some of her annoyance over the restaurant through.

"Very well, Miss Snarky, you have a plan?" Harry asked with the appropriate amount of attitude.

She paused for a moment. Her red hair was shining and curly down her back. He didn't know when it had the chance to grow so much - just like her. Her mouth twitched - a tick - while she thought. Her head was tilted back, looking upwards to the tops of the buildings. Nothing could make you feeling like more of a rat in a maze than cities. Harry smiled at the sight of her. He could almost see the thoughts running through her head, showing off just how intelligent she was.

She tried to hide it sometimes, which Harry had never understood - that was kind of a lie, he did. She was smarter than him by far. She absorbed languages like a sponge. She took in stride almost everything that happened to her. Her entire mindset was adaptability and flexibility, to be whatever she needed to be to get the job done.

"Yes, I think I do." She smiled sharply and Harry shivered, nothing good could come of this.

* * *

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" The voice that spoke perfectly fit the body that it belonged to, gravely and deep. The cigar that hung from the mouth of the giant was lit, allowing the smoky smell to fill the room. "Caught some cockroaches I see."

The mammoth hand grabbed his chin, wrenching it to the side forcing him to look at the tattooed and grimy face. Black lines traced over scars, instead of hiding them it accentuated them. This man liked showing off that much was obvious from his face. Harry already knew this fact of course. TANK wasn't a pretty man, but it wasn't his job to be pretty.

He had scars over his entire body, his shirt didn't have sleeves and all of the scars had the same black lines tracing them, making a ghastly lacework across his skin. The lines weren't pretty either. The ink had been forced under the skin, that much was obvious. Harry suddenly had the image of a large mucky needle the size of a nail with ink on the tip of it piercing the man's skin. He smiled grimly to himself and wondered what others might think of him, the tick marks the covered skin like trophies.

"Sorry, we must have made a wrong turn somewhere. If you would untie me I would gladly get out of your hair - oops." Harry's gaze flicked up to his bald head, "Too soon?"

The hand that snapped his head back around was the same one that grabbed his chin - the man's other hand was occupied by his cigar. Harry allowed his neck to relax and move with the hit, there was no reason to cause more damage trying to show off his strength.

Harry's hands were tied tightly behind the back of the chair he was on. More rope circled his upper arms forcing his chest out - vulnerable. His legs were also tied to the chair. His favorite part of the entire dramatic setup, though, was the six inch knife that was wedged into the seat right between his legs. It was about five centimeters from his crotch and he imagined that when they placed it there it was meant to show him just how far they were willing to go.

They probably hadn't like it when he snorted that the melodramatic action.

"Now, let's see here." The oversized man reached behind him and in a seemingly rehearsed move - because there was no way it couldn't be - grabbed a folder from one of his man goons that were all similar in height and weight. Harry wondered idly if there was a factory were you could order henchmen like this, because it always seemed to be the exact same men following every nut job with money. These particular goons even all had on a uniform of bullet proof vests and automatic weapons. The new war on the horizon in the United States looked like it was making business for some people at least. "Basilisk and Black Widow?"

"That's Mr. Basilisk to you." Harry answered with a cockeyed grin, no use in keeping silent now. The backhanded slap only served to make him hunger for more - his masochistic tendencies peaked their head out from where they had been hiding for a few years. There was something about being at the mercy of a psychotic person that man him nostalgic.

The enormous man stared down at him for a second trying to decide if he was going to hit him or not and Harry tried not to laugh at the posturing man.

"Hmm." The man hummed to himself and looked flicked his eyes back and forth between the two people tied to chairs. He sauntered over to Natasha's chair and stood their posturing for a bit - he seemed to be fond of it. "Well, aren't you are pretty little thing." The hand that grabbed Harry's chin was now on his partner and Harry forcefully stayed relaxed in his chair. The man couldn't hurt Natasha in any way that would matter, because not all the rope in the world could protect him from Harry.

"Now, you," TANK walked back over to Harry and patted his head condescendingly. "I can make a pretty penny off of you." He looked into the folder and mock whistled. "Three different _companies_ are after your blood, and strangely enough none of them want you dead." The man was missing three teeth, one of them even looked to have been tugged from the mouth. "Not to mention all of the _friends_ of the people you killed. It's rare that I get such a treat just appear on my doorstep." The man's crackling laugh wasn't enhanced by the soft whistling that came from his missing teeth. "Did you really think we wouldn't notice you trying to steal from one of our protected companies? The CEO was so pleased by your capture I even think he might give us a bonus. I should really thank you."

"Don't hurt your brain." Harry said smarmily and wasn't surprised by the second backhand that came his direction.

"You've got a smart mouth for someone tied to a chair." And Harry's only response was a bloodied smile. The man's eyes flashed in anger, upset that he couldn't get Harry off guard. "I think you are being a little to obstinate."

TANK crossed the room to Natasha's chair in two strides, his seven foot tall body moving much more gracefully than Harry thought should even be possible.

"Ooh, big word, ten points."

The giant man grinned cruelly. Harry didn't tense which the man grabbed a handful of Natasha's hair and pulled her head backwards roughly, but it was a close call. "You're mighty wordy for someone in your position. See, I can make some money off of you, but her." He shook her head roughly and turned it to face him. "I might save her for a morale booster for the boys." Harry ignored the disgusting grins on the nearby goons faces because there wasn't much else he could do right now. It was Natasha's plan, not his, and she wanted to be responsible for this one.

Tears started leaking from Natasha's face and Harry relaxed a little more in his chair. Her fake crying face was a comfort to him, like a warm blanket on a cold night. It only made him more pleased when a couple of the thugs in the room shifted uneasily. There was something about a crying woman that set most people off balance. TANK just glared down at her, which was to be expected, he was the type of person who had killed entire families worth of people and had no sympathy for crying women or children.

"So-sorry, I'll stop soo-on. I swear." The hiccupping of Natasha's voice made Harry want to give her a standing ovation and nominate her for an Oscar. The men shifted more.

"Boss..." The voice of the goon that handed him the file called softly.

"Shut up." TANK's gruff voice snapped at them. "Hardly the first crying woman in this office." He grinned repulsively at Natasha's wet face.

The turn of his head and the distraction of the rest of the room gave Natasha her chance.

Like a bit of rope would ever stop Natasha, her hand slipped behind the giant's leg. She must have done it because he twirled back to her with wide eyes of terror.

"WHAT DID YOU DO? WHO TIED..." He loud rage filled tone petered off. He coughed into his hand.

His entire body seemed to crumple in on itself, no longer seeming the giant - just a man. Harry looked on in wonder.

It was so easy, he thought, to kill somebody. Why was that?

The man's body crashed to the floor and Natasha moved. Her body pulled out throwing knives that the search of their bodies had missed. He looked apathetically at the hunk of dead body that lay on the floor and then moved himself. The rope fell off with a flick of his wrist, the knife in his hand sliced through the rope without much trouble. He wondered when exactly they were going to learn not to use rope.

Natasha moved through the rest of the room quickly and Harry joined her. It was a deadly ballet of swiping knives and pulling guns off of dead bodies.

Harry ducked under the arm of one of the identical thugs and tugged it with him, pulled the arm into a locked position and maneuvering the man's body in front of him. The pops of gunshots cracked through the room. The body that he was holding in front of him jerked. The impacts of the bullets in the body almost forced it out of his hand, but he went with it.

It took a forceful push and the body was rushing forward - dead even if it didn't know it yet. It knocked into the person that had killed it accidentally. Bodies fell to the ground and Harry was over them in a second. His hand weaved his way through the bodies and found the jugular. He stared at the blood gushing from the body of the helpless man, mouth moving trying to ask for something - mercy, maybe? - Harry didn't care.

He pulled the gun from the dead man's hopelessly grasping hands. He almost turned around when he felt it.

His body fell to the ground instinctively, anything to get away from bullets. He pulled the gun around and spun on the floor, the gun springing to his hands as he shot.

The man he was shooting at looked surprised for a second before his body tumbled over, shot through the head bleeding lightly.

Natasha was moving quickly through her side of the room. Her grace and speed was the most helpful to her. She slipped through the legs of one tall man, dropping him to the floor. It only took a twist and a slice for the man to fall bloodily to the floor one last time. She spun again, knife leaving her hand before she had even fully turned. One of the new men entering the room crashed to the floor surprised, knife in the throat. The man that stepped over him uncaringly and pushed it further into the body.

Harry's gun was shooting bullets, before he was even thinking about it. His entire body was working on carefully built muscle memory now. He didn't even have to look behind him to turn suddenly and shoot the goon that was about to hit him.

In brawls like this there is not time for conscious thinking, it is all experience and instincts. It's taking out the biggest threats and letting a few of the small ones hit you because even if you were injured you were alive.

He focused back on Natasha for a second. She had her wire wrapped around both hands - a skill she had become more than proficient at over the past. The weight attached to one end spun in one hand. The throw was perfect, the end of the wire wrapped around the throat of the lead man. She tugged down on the wire, pulled the man to the floor. The leap over the downed body was so natural it looked like she was born to do it.

Harry pulled his eyes back to his own fight. The gun clicked, the sound of an empty mag. Harry threw it from his hands to the face of the closest goon. His body quickly followed. He pulled a hand gun from the man's front and knocked the man's hands away. After a few seconds of dodging fists and punching vulnerable spots on the body, his hand found the man's head. The barrel of the gun was pressed there for less than a second before the head whipped to the side and the dead body followed it.

Harry's gun was shooting, his body was ducking behind useless shelves for cover. Every shot hit a mark - head, throat, arms, legs, groin - no place was to open or too protected. He stepped over a man that was clutching his leg and groaning.

Harry's body jerked and he stared down at the bullet wound on his arm in slight confusion. He shook his head and shoot toward the place it had come from. His now useless left arm was tucked against his side.

A man fell to the ground, and another followed, another, another. Harry didn't even notice the bodies he stepped over, they weren't important, not really.

Nothing was important... but her.

She was like an angel of death come to the earth, an Amazonian or goddess of war.

Harry grimaced at his thoughts, when did he become a forlorn teenage poet? Natasha spun through the men still alive, leaving a trail behind her. A modern day Gretel with her bread crumb bodies.

Harry stopped, the room was too silent.

Natasha stood panting, but no one else did.

Bodies littered the floor, almost twenty of them and Harry thought that wasn't normal because what two people could take out twenty trained goons.

Blood covered both of their bodies - some of it theirs, some of it not.

Their bodies drew to each other, pulled by some unseen force. Whether it was to prove that both of them had survived mostly unscathed or for some other purpose Harry didn't know or care.

All that mattered was her. He tried to shut his mind off because he didn't like Natasha like that - _love_, part of his mind betraying whispered - he couldn't.

They didn't touch each other because they weren't civilian lovers. There was no reason to grab the other's body in relief or worry. They couldn't stop their eyes from searching though, absorbing the other person like it was their very life force.

Natasha's eyes slipped from him, looking around the room. She toed one of the nearby bodies and snorted. Harry didn't join her because hysterical laughter never helped anything and he was a professional.

"You okay?" She gestured to the bullet wound in his arm.

"Merely a consequence of the job." He motioned to the slash that had cut into her stomach armor showing skin. "Right?"

She looked down and shrugged, because in the midst of battle it just wasn't something you noticed. Her gaze flicked around the room and settled on something in the corner. "Smile, we're on candid camera."

Harry's gaze snapped to the camera just hanging in the corner and sighed exasperatedly. He was supposed to be incognito, unseen and unheard. When had he and Natasha become so obvious. He needed to disappear that was the entire reason he had taken this job in the first place and look where it landed him now. He was more in the light now than he had ever been.

He turned away from the camera and purposefully kicked TANK's body on the way towards the down.

"Time to go." He said loud enough for her to hear.

"Right behind you."

* * *

AN: HELLLLLLOOOOOO. Happy New Years 2013. Hopefully this will be a productive year for me. I'm graduating college in may. Everyone can congratulate me now. Alright, you can stop, thank you.

I'm sorry it took me so long to write this. School absorbed my entire life and I had to focus on that. I finished a chapter and I do have a plan already for the next one, but if you want it quicker you have to review (Blatant Bribe/unrepentant author).

I hope you are having a good day and I hope you have an amazing new year! I hope you enjoyed your rewards and are relaxing with friends this holiday season.

Wishing you the best,

~Rain

PS: If you notice any blatant spelling or grammatical errors or missed/extra words, please just point it out to be and I'll fix it.


	9. Rule Number Two

**Disclaimer****: **Don't kill me, or sue me for that matter.

* * *

**Rule Number Two**

* * *

Harry didn't put a dreamless sleep potion in Natasha's drink. He really didn't because it would have been one of the last ones he had - having not been close enough to any magical community recently to restock - and he didn't waste precious potions. He didn't put in her drink and then lay her on bed after she fell asleep at the table. He certainly didn't tuck her into bed, because as previously mentioned he didn't have anything to do with her sudden lethargy. He was completely innocent.

But, if he had; he would have had a good reason.

Harry's mind fled that train of thought the instant he hit the narrow and dirty streets of New Orleans French Quarter. There was an ambiance to this place that penetrated his very bones. The old angry magic of the place still wasn't resting, but had calmed as the centuries passed. It drew people to the place whether they knew it or not, provided a little touch of magic inspiration to those not in the know.

For people like him, it provided more than just a touch of magic. The entire place sat on a leyline - a magic generator - and those that accessed its magic could do great things with it, and terrible things. Inferi were created by the witches and wizards that found his place and others like it, they drew from the very soul of the world to give life to things that shouldn't live.

Harry looked at the cracked buildings and missing tiles in the sidewalk and couldn't help feel at home. The people that did magic here weren't light - not at first - and the reciprocal magic sharing between these witches and wizards had lead to one of the most tainted leylines in the world.

It didn't feel tainted to him; of course, it wouldn't to all those with dark magic in their system or on their body. Harry could almost feel his curse marks absorbing the very magic in air he breathed. He felt both lighter and heavier, a heady mixture.

He slowed his walking pace to a crawl. No wonder they called it the big easy, everything about the place just made you want to relax a little, like there was no real hurry to get anywhere.

He focused after a few minutes, because despite the comfort this place provided him he did have something to do today.

The tiny doorway of the shop was dusty, but there was a red neon sign in the window that said 'Open' so he pushed on. The door creaked when it opened and a bell dinged from inside the shop. The room was cramped, shelves filled most of the space of the room and Harry doubted that any normal sized person could make their way through it without knocking something over - which is maybe what the owners wanted.

It's wares were nothing special, more tourist souvenirs, than anything really. Tiny yarn voodoo dolls hung from key chains and plastic colored beans hung in all shapes and sizes from the walls. Harry didn't let it deter him though, because once he spotted wormwood hidden on one of the shelves he knew this wasn't a regular muggle store. Of course, that's why he had come there in the first place.

"Sorry, I was just in the girl's room." The colorful woman entered the front room via a grimy pink tapestry that covered a doorway. "Welcome, I am Madame..."

At this point she trailed off because she had finally gotten a full view of Harry's form. Harry didn't sigh or say anything at all because he knew he had screwed up, that's why he was here in the first place.

"Madame...what?" Harry asked with a grin, flicking one of the key chain crosses idly.

"I..." She cleared her throat and then straightened up to her full height - under five feet. "You may call me Eve, young man." She pushed some of her grey hair back to her bun and clipped it there.

"I'm assuming you know who I am then, by your startled expression."

"It's not every day someone meets a celebrity..."

"Or a wanted fugitive." Harry cuts in.

"Never again shall I complain about a boring life."

"Boring is not an adjective I've ever heard attached to your person, Eve." Harry stepped closer and was pleased when she didn't tense.

"Little boy, when you've been alive as long as I have, you too will think life is boring. Everything becomes dull after you've done it a thousand times already, even sex." She moved passed Harry in a quick shuffling motion that had him smiling. She flicked a switch on the sign and locked the front door. "I'm assuming you are here for my less advertised services."

He looked at the prices sign on the back wall that placed hand and tarot card readings at fifty dollars a pop. He whistled lowly. "That's pretty steep."

She shot him a look, "Of course it is, my readings are accurate. You should see the prices for magicals, much steeper. The future is always finicky around magic, something about it just disturbs entire timelines." She looked him up and down, assessing. "You couldn't pay me enough money in the world to read you, deary. Just standing next to you is giving me a headache. Too many paths for you to take. Your timelines are a spaghetti bowl the size of North America." She squinted at him then. "Though, I'll tell you this, you've got a big decision to make soon. One that will alter the course of your entire life."

Harry smirked. "I hope you don't except me to pay for that, that's practically a daily occurrence for me. Besides, I don't put too much stock in seers." With good reason.

"Ah, one of those." She nodded as if he had explained the entire universe to her in a nutshell. "Well then, never mind that, let's get down to real business."

"You know what I want?" Harry asked her curiously.

"I have a fairly good guess," She shrugged off a knitted red shawl and pulled her hair up tighter, gaining years in the process. "That's mostly what I do anyway - guess - so I'm pretty good at it."

"I hope you are good at other stuff too."

She glared, "Boy, my entire line can be traced back centuries with witches and magic. My grimoire is taller than you are."

"No, offense meant." He put his hands up mockingly, because despite what she had implied he could definitely get her if he wanted to. "So, do you know how to do it? Can you?" He asked seriously, because his entire life might change right here, with her.

"What you are asking from me isn't easy." She pulled something from behind her desk, a notebook. She flipped through it and then paused. She held it up for him to see a familiar face. "Harry Potter, wanted dead or alive. Extremely dangerous, do not approach. Call authorities immediately upon sight. The immediately is underlined a few times, so I'm fairly sure they mean it."

Harry grabbed it from her hands. The black and white moving picture wasn't a very good image of him, moving quickly with only a split second look at the camera. Harry recognized the image from the time he had escaped the authorities with Natasha in tow. He did wonder where the actual picture came from though, because he certainly didn't remember any camera's lying around. Not that he was that good at spotting them anyways; he rubbed his temple.

"What's this book?"

"Wanted posters in book form. They have existed in these parts long before either of us were born. They are updated weekly and given to all the magical shop owners and officials. You are kind of a celebrity purely because of your longevity, not many people stay on those books longer than a year, you've been in there three." She smiled and rubbed her hands together. "That's neither here nor there. Let's get down to business. You want to disappear." A statement, not a question.

"I'm good at disappearing. It's not that I'm looking for. I need a permanent solution to the monitoring ward."

"Oh, _the_ _monitoring ward_," her eyes gleamed at the challenge. "You mean the one that most magical countries put up to find out exactly where a certain magical signature is used? That ward?"

"The one that has prevented me from using my magic fully for going on two years now. I want it gone. I don't want it to find me, _ever_." Harry stated. He had felt empty without his magic and the few times he had dared had been quickly followed by escape. He could do the small stuff, but any battle magic would be picked up almost instantly. He had been lucky enough to place most of his hidey holes before it went into full effect and had spent months afterward trying to figure out a way to power them up without alerting the authorities.

Madame Eve wasn't his last resort - he did have a list - but she was one of the more likely ones. Her family had one of the more colorful histories in the wizarding world, so much so that they had many biographies written about them. Her magic was neither light nor dark and was extremely powerful just by inheritance alone.

"This is no school ward trick, boy. It's not like removing a monitoring charm from a underage wizard's wand. It will require powerful magic." She stared at him seriously now, searching his soul. Harry wasn't afraid, there was nothing there to show. "It will hurt and pull more from you than you probably have to give. There is no guarantee that it won't kill you outright. Pulling from the Earth Magic is wild, raw, untamable. It may not want to cooperate."

"I'll do it."

"You're awfully quick to agree." She smiled matronly. Her wide lips held too many teeth and looked like they belonged more on a shark than an old lady. "Didn't you hear the part about dying?"

"I'm as good as dead without it. I need to use my magic and I refuse to play the _muggle_ anymore." Harry didn't know if his eyes flashed red, but the rush of tantalizing anger that laced through his system certainly made him think they had. He looked away from her a second just in case, no need to scare the help.

"Well, I can do what you ask then. Just be prepared for the consequences." She turned and pulled the curtain back to show the rest of the house. A crooked hallway lead to creaking stairs and stained wallpaper.

Harry looked at the room she had lead him to, unimpressed. "Don't we have to be outside or something, sacrifice a goat?"

Eve laughed so deeply Harry didn't know if it was real or not. "Oh dear, it's not that kind of magic. You don't need to be any closer than this to get full effects. It might actually help to be higher. The leyline is stronger closer to the ground and if you get too close magic becomes almost impossible to control. Here I'll have more luck." She pulled away an overskirt and tugged off her shoes, wriggling her toes. "It's a good night to do magic. Kneel." She pointed to a rough circle that had been drawn out with salt. Her tone was all business. "Arms up." She pushed him into position when he didn't hit exactly where she wanted.

She dabbed her finger in some kind of oil and grabbed his wrist roughly. She positioned it just right and started to draw.

Harry had done some work with runes before, had to with warding, but he had never seen the one that she drew on his wrist. The lines crisscrossed his wrist connecting two tick marks that were placed there.

"Great Mother, bless us this night." Her voice was saturated with magic. He could feel it spinning in the air, pulling together and pushing apart. Her hand grabbed his other wrist and before he knew it she was scribbling away. He resisted the urge to pull away or to push closer. The magic in the air was getting stronger, increasing. "Find your loyal daughter. Help her in this quest."

Harry would have laughed at her usage of the word 'quest' if he wasn't so out of it. The magic in the air had started twisting now, twirling. It was like a ballet in the air that only he could see, front row seats. Except it wasn't, it was more like a car crash, all terrible forces and agonizing surprise and mind numbing intensity. No, it was more like a whirlpool, spinning, spinning, spinning, pulling him in deeper; too deep. It was like falling into an abyss and flying above the clouds without a broomstick.

He tried gasping, he didn't know if he succeeded. The air was too thick - molasses - no one would be able to breathe this. He spared a glance at Eve draw to her visage dancing it the air, enticing, mesmerizing, and she seemed to be able to breathe just fine. Her mouth was moving quickly now, not that Harry could hear it. There was sound in his ears, but it wasn't words.

His entire mind was stuffed with cotton balls, there was no space for any more words.

No space for more anything.

He passed out.

* * *

He flexed his wrists. His arms. His legs and chest. He stretched his neck. He shook out the tension and then tightened up again.

His body felt different. He had been changed in some indiscernible way. He didn't feel stronger or weaker. He wasn't more flexible. He didn't feel gills on his neck and his legs hadn't turned into fins. Something was different though.

It was like trying on a new pair of pants. They fit and were comfortable, but they weren't like his old worn in ones that had survived years with him. There was nothing wrong with getting a new pair of jeans, but no matter how much they fit you still had to get used to them.

"Are you done lazing about?" The cranky and graveled tone called from across the room.

Harry's eyes that were his - but not - found the older woman lounging on a rocker on the other side of the room. She looked older and more tired than she did before, but at the same time buzzed with an energy that seemed immortal.

But that was magic - beautiful contradictions.

"Did it work?" Madame Eve's voice wasn't the only one that was hoarse. He tried to clear his throat and chugged down the glass of water that was placed conveniently on the bedside table.

"I don't know. No way to tell without trying." She coughed a little. Harry raised his hand to flick, "No." The stern voice broke his concentration. "If it didn't work I don't want to be and accessory to whatever it is that you have done." The grandmotherly voice made it odd to hear it from her mouth.

Harry stared at her for a second before nodding. The woman had done more than enough to get her in his good books and that was hard enough.

"Why help in the first place?"

"Plenty of reasons, Mr. Potter." His last name didn't make him tense, but it was a close call, the first time he had heard it in almost four years. "Your existence has mitigated a number of world ending timelines - though it has caused many headaches for me and mine. I am not the only one who remembers what you did for our world, not just how you did it. You still have much left in front of you and infinite number of headaches and choices. A destiny whether you want it or not. Whether for good or ill, you having access to your magic makes life a tad more interesting. Not that I'm much looking for interesting at this time in my life, but the world needs shaking up and you are an earthquake in mortal form. Yes, mortal, though you do seem to forget it sometimes. You are _mortal_, Mr. Potter, and I would much like to see you survive the next week."

Harry took her forewarning for what it was. Though he would never fully trust a seer.

"That's it? You helped me because you wanted more entertainment?"

She cackled a little and showed her wide smile again, fully capable of eating another human he was sure. "You could do great things, Mr. Potter." Harry's déjà vu fit him full force. "Terrible or not, good or not. The world needs you in it, Mr. Potter, and you are half a man without access to your magic. For what lies ahead we will need all of you, not just the Boy-Who-Lived or the Basilisk or that other part that must not be named, all of you." Harry didn't glare at her, but his hand did twitch closer to his wand. Only to find it not there. His eyes sharpened on her. "No need to get your trousers in a bunch, it's right there." She pointed a long finger to his bedside table and the skinny piece of wood sitting on it. His hand grabbed towards it, "No!" The sharp tone brought his eyes back to her. Despite his instincts screaming at him, he didn't pick up his wand.

His eyes flickered between the lonely wand and her, mind racing. "The ritual?"

"There are costs to everything Mr. Potter. You should feel lucky you got off cheap."

"Cheap? I don't get to use my wand!" the exclamation shot from his mouth unbidden.

She shrugged. "You don't fool me, Mr. Potter. I know you are capable of wandless magic."

"Small stuff or spells I've practiced until I knew them like my shoe size, nothing big." Nothing near big enough for what he needed now. "That's why I came to you in the first place." He almost growled.

Her smile was vicious. "Dear, despite what you might think of yourself, you are not the most dangerous person I've ever met. You are damaged and I'm sure if you wanted to you could probably kill me, but I didn't get my reputation for being easily intimidated." She laced her fingers together. "That is why you came to me, right? My reputation precedes me."

"I could already do the small stuff." He didn't whine.

"Quit complaining. Be happy that the magic went in your favor. So you lost your wand," she shrugged, " get over it. You already knew some wandless magic, all you have to do is practice. It should at least be easier for you now."

"Is that why I feel off?"

"Yes. The magic channels in your body moved around a bit. It should be easier to do magic without a focus now." She leaned closer. "However, if you pick up that wand and try to do magic with it the entire night will be for naught. The second your magic goes through a focus it will realign to how it was settled before, their by negating your invisibility."

"Not exactly what I would call it." He told her.

"You are hidden from view by Auror standards. You can do magic all you want and it won't trigger the monitoring ward. Apparate all over the world for all I care, but you can't use a wand to do it."

A tiny part of him broke. That wand had been with him through thick and thin, through the worst and the nastiest parts. He could feel the blood of the fallen sticking to it still. He didn't think he could ever live without it. "Can I pick it up? Keep it on me?"

She shrugged again. "Don't know. Wouldn't recommend it though, too much temptation."

He nodded and pulled up a bit of cloth to wrap around its handle before lifting it. He tucked it into its holder for the last time.

He pulled a miniature sized duffle bag out of his pocket. The magic that exploded from his hand certainly felt different from what he was used it, but it did seem to flow easier. There wasn't much resistance. The resizing charm was one of the small ones that he had practiced until it practically didn't need anything to work. It attached to the miniature duffle like an old friend, reverting to its original form. He handed the resized bag to Madame Eve who stood from her rocker.

"That should be enough." There was plenty of money in the bag, it wasn't like he was using it for anything really. She put it down beside her and Harry wasn't really surprised when it disappeared.

"Thank you, Mr. Potter. Your business is always appreciated. If you would recommend me to your collogues I would appreciate it."

"You're an interesting woman, Madame Eve."

"No need to insult me, Mr. Potter, we were just starting to get along." Her too wide smile again took up her face. "Now, I think it's time for you to go, deary." She looked out the window at the rising sun and he nodded. "Just one more thing." He faced her serious and dangerous face. "You aren't the only one with a destiny, Mr. Potter, your girl has one too."

He swept out the door without another word. He had a lot to do today.

* * *

The hotel room was small and cozy. Warm, vibrant colors complemented deep ones. The deep red of Natasha's curly hair only made the room that much better. Everything seemed to fit perfectly - except him.

Harry let the door shut behind him and stripped off his clothes.

The queen size bed was cozy for two and the feel of Natasha's clothed body beside him seemed to make everything better. It was just one more day. A quick contract and they were done in the city. Natasha was peacefully asleep and getting so much stronger everyday.

Which made him feel that much worse. It was only a matter of time until it all went to shit.

* * *

Harry whistled as he walked down the still narrow streets of New Orleans. He had finished a job and wasn't covered in blood, a good reason to be happy. The job had been easy, a quick unlocking charm, a sleeping spell, and a prick with Basilisk venom. It was so easy with magic and Harry had almost forgotten how good it felt.

Natasha had been a little disappointed at the quick kill, but had gotten over it quickly when Harry gave her a night of complete freedom on Bourbon street. It wasn't like he kept her locked in a cage or anything, but the last few weeks had been spent running from place to place as soon as a job was done. Harry was feeling good though, magic running through his veins unchecked and easy job and easier paycheck, all the while in a city that made him feel alive. A night off wasn't that much really and it was a great day.

He should have known better.

"Basilisk. So good to finally meet you." The click of footsteps on tile followed the smooth voice.

Harry froze, his hand hovered over the vacant spot where his wand once lay. He had left it in the hotel room with the rest of his stuff. For good reason.

"Wish I could say the same about you." He turned slowly on the spot because he knew a predator's voice when he heard it. And because the red dot that had settled on him burned like a laser on his body. He stared at for a second before focusing on the man. The suit was tailored, the blond hair pulled back. His face was handsome in an unremarkable way. "Little excessive don't you think." He gestured lightly to the dot, not to fast, never too fast.

"No, Basilisk, I don't think so. I think one is too little." The snake-like non-smile that settled on his face belonged there. "Which is why there are more, lingering about. I always thought the red lasers where a little dumb, after all the good ones don't need them. It serves for this purpose however." Intimidation.

"I don't think we've been properly introduced." Harry gritted his teeth and tried to ignore the tremors crawling up his spine in anger.

"Yes, of course, you can call me Mr. White." He straightened a cuff on his suit. "I take care of acquisitions, Mr. Black takes care of day to day operations. We are interested in you."

"Weird place for a job interview." Harry snarled.

"We're not a normal company." Mr. White's grin widened. "I like you, which is why I want you for this job. Mr. Black wasn't completely convinced, but your little performance at Ryder Industries sealed the deal."

"Sorry, I'm not looking for a job right now."

"I'm afraid it wasn't an offer." His eyes sharpened.

"The answer is still no."

"You haven't even heard me out. That's a bit rude."

"I try."

The suited man laughed. "You are just delightful." His face turned into a smile looking at Harry. "My company is in a bit of a bind, Mr. Potter. We need some new talent. You might not have heard, but the American's are started a new war that is bound to be just as oversized and unnecessary as they normally are. Which makes people like me very happy. It means money in the bank in the best way possible. It also means I get new toys." His gaze on Harry brightened. "Your particular brand of destruction would be very useful to me."

"You're like Black Hull Securities."

The man scoffed. "We are nothing like that disgusting man's company, which we happily absorbed after that job of yours. I must thank you for that, you certainly made life easier for me. Mr. Shinsky is one of our slimier employees, but he certainly has initiative. Don't you think?"

"If that's one of your employees I don't think I'll fit very well."

"Nonsense, you are perfect for us. You are powerful in ways that others are not, and you aren't afraid to use that power or revel in it. I can feel your constricted power from all the way over here. Which is exactly how I like my employees." He took a step closer, draw in by Harry.

"Black Widow and I are just fine, but thanks for the offer."

"Ah yes, the gorgeous Black Widow." He pulled something from his pocket and showed it to Harry. Natasha was at a bar throwing back a beer, at least five different guys were trying to get her attention. Harry could see the familiar lights of Bourbon Street in the background. It had been taken that night. "Such a pretty little thing, what a shame."

Harry tensed, froze in almost horror. "What did you do to her?" His voice didn't catch in his throat as it growled out, which he was proud of.

"Nothing, it's what you are going to do." He tucked the picture back in his pocket and smiled at him again. "You should have split with her years ago, then none of this nastiness would be necessary."

"None of what?"

"You are going to kill her - tonight." The man spoke as if it was small talk about the weather, just something that will be.

"No, I'm not." Harry choked out. His mind trying to focus on Natasha, trying to think of a plan to get them both out of this.

"Yes, Basilisk," He hissed the name, "you are. Do you want to know why?"

"Why?" He growled.

"Because I told you to." His grin snaked back onto his face. "Then you and I are going to get on a plane and we will fly off to your new job."

"No."

"Stop being so obstinate, it's unattractive."

"I could kill you."

"I suppose you could try, but it would be a waste of a good asset." His I-know-something-you-don't face was obnoxious. "You don't think we investigated you, Basilisk. Your particular brand of energy was difficult to pin down, but Ryder Industries did quite well. It was in fact your little spider that helped them there. She was covered in the stuff, simply coated with it. Almost like you slept with her, you naughty boy. We haven't quite fixed up a perfect defense yet, but enough that I am standing in front of you today without worry. Nevertheless, if you try then my other little assets will have to kill you." He gestured to unmoving dot on his chest. Harry's face must have given away something because he sighed a little. "Please, you didn't think we grabbed her just because one of our lower tier employees had a grudge. You are the catch here, not her."

"Why not just make her an asset of yours too."

"Don't insult us." He scoffed. "She's nothing. She's only good because she's hanging onto you, dragging you down. You could be so much more without her, and she is a waste of space without you. See, I thought in the beginning if we could just separate the two of you it wouldn't be a problem. I know better now of course. She needs to be gone and you need to be the one to do it."

"Why?"

"Because once you cut ties with her, you could be beautiful. You are okay right now. You have potential. Without her, you would be magnificent. You need to kill her, because if anyone else did it you would turn her into a martyr. Try to get revenge on whoever did it. You are in too deep, she's got her pincers in you and you don't even see it. She's a different kind of monster than us. It's not about the killing for her, it's about getting her victims to give up something they don't want to give, that's what gets her off. I can see the potential in people, it's the reason I have the job I do. You are perfect for us and we for you. She is not."

"I won't do it."

"You weren't listening, Basilisk. This isn't an offer, it's an ultimatum. You go and kill her then take your place in the company, or you both die. You are no good for us alive and the company doesn't leave loose ends."

"I won't." He growled again. "You'll have to kill me." Madame Eve's warning was screaming in his head.

"Save me from stubborn men." White sighed. "Basilisk, we aren't so different."

"Sure we are. You like wearing suits."

The man chuckled. "Why are you doing this job?" The question caught Harry off guard. "You don't need to anymore. You have more than enough money to retire to some place like Florida like the rest of the old wrinkly people. So why are you still doing it? Killing people?" His reappeared, sharpened. "You do it for the same reason the rest of us do. You like it. You couldn't stop if you wanted to. The rush is undeniable, unavoidable, addicting. You are a junkie like the rest of us."

Harry didn't correct him. The urge was there, the bloodlust that had never truly disappeared. It raced through his system, forcing him to pay attention to it - to kill. It was a part of him. It was also the part that seemed to be winning most days. The part that had appeared right before he had killed Voldemort and had never disappeared. The corrupted part. He didn't like his job, but he certainly didn't hate it and at times he needed it. "What makes you think I won't just run?"

"I could tell you it's impossible. That's not really true though. You have been running for a long while, you are even good at it - another reason we want you - but you can't run forever. It wears out even the toughest soul. Black Widow won't last that long anyway. Then all it takes is one mistake and you are both dead anyway." He straightened up and stepped closer. "The opportunity of a lifetime lays ahead of you. Legal killing for money and no one would punish you for it. The easy life. All you have to do is get rid of your barnacle."

It didn't sound appealing he tried to force himself to think - it didn't work. The offer was nice, good even. No running, just a job following orders. A part of him rebelled at the following orders bit, but the rest of him just wanted a break for a while. Three years constantly on the run, didn't he deserve it? "I..."

The man smiled, his fish had been caught. "Easy. Just follow me."

The red dot disappeared from his shirt. That didn't fool him though. He could feel the others still stuck on him, like insects crawling on his body.

They walked barely two streets before they stopped in front of a doorway with two men standing outside.

"Now?" Harry asked surprised, but he forced his voice steady. He knew exactly who was on the other side of that door. Natasha had been taken here, that much was sure. His entire body was tensing and loosening. Was he seriously considering this? Was this path really his destiny, his way to survival?

"No time like the present. Might as well get this over with quick, rip the band aid off. Then we can get to the fun stuff." He looked almost giddy at the upcoming death.

Harry nodded slowly and steeled himself.

The door opened for him. The room it lead to wasn't large, but it was empty except for the few large men milling about and the teenage girl sitting on the chair in the middle. She wasn't tied there, but Harry figured it was because they knew she could get out of it anyway.

"Basilisk!" Natasha stood from her seated position in almost shock. "I was wondering where you were."

"Just a little busy is all." He crossed the room in a few strides. He stopped a little closer than he would normally. Her face was there, in front of him. It shone with brightness and sharpness, imprinting itself on his mind. He soaked it in, taking her entire visage into his mind. He would never forget her like this. Her hair fell in perfect curls around her face. Hazel eyes pushed into his, cementing themselves in his mind.

"So what's going on?" She glanced behind him to the still milling thugs and the newly appeared Mr. White.

"I got a job offer."

"Oh," She relaxed a little and Harry screamed at her in his head. Had they seriously become this complacent, this vulnerable? "Just that? Why didn't they just contact us through normal means. This is a little melodramatic and they interrupted my night off." She didn't pout, but Harry could see past the emotionless facade to the annoyed teen.

Harry smiled at her. Her youth was showing itself. It drew to Harry like a moth. He stepped closer to her. "Do you trust me, Natasha?" He whispered into her ear. He wasn't sure if anyone else could hear, but at this point he didn't care.

"Of course." Her bewildered tone drew him in.

His hand latched on to her cheek. His face drew closer to hers. His other hand settled around her waist and rested on her lower back, pressing there tightly. It pulled her flush to him, he soaked in as much of her as allowed in present company. He took a deep breath to lock in her scent - never to forget it. The hand resting on her back seemed to heat up, drawing power.

He pulled his face in. His lips touched hers.

It was soft and pliant and perfect. The world didn't explode around them, but in the tiny bubble in which they resided it was perfect. Their bodies fit like jigsaw pieces. It was like coming home and going on the best adventure of his life at once. They fit together perfectly. He could understand the songs now, because frankly he wanted to start singing for no reason too.

It made him mourn.

He didn't know how long they stood together, it would never be enough. He pulled away from her reluctantly. He savored her taste as much as he could. His entire body screaming at him to not do what he was about to do.

There was no other options.

"You shouldn't have." Natasha's eyes widened, that was all she had time to do.

The burst of light that came from Natasha's body disappeared in a second along with her. It was anticlimactic.

Harry looked down at the pile of ash on the floor where Natasha once stood. He never should have gotten that close to her. He had known the only way to distract her and he took it without remorse. He looked down at the small pile of ash that lay in the palm of his still burning hand. He let it drop to the floor unceremoniously.

The laughter of the man behind him didn't surprise him. He was too exhausted to be surprised.

He straightened his shoulders and turned to the man apathetically. "We good to go?" His hoarse voice asked the still laughing man.

The man settled to a chuckle. "I think we are going to get along just fine. Welcome to Yin-Yang Industries."

* * *

AN: There we are. Pretty nice chapter. Some mistakes I'm sure, if you want to point them out I would be happy to fix. I'm headed back to school so we'll see how the updating goes, but don't forget about me.

Also, I wrote a Teen Wolf one-shot, but it appears that no one reads Teen Wolf, which make me slightly sad. However, if you want to check it out I wouldn't mind (unrepentant advertising).

Enough of that now, hope you are having a good new year. Feel free to leave any comments about the chapter in the review box, they are much appreciated - I read all of them gratefully. I know it's not perfect though, but I like it well enough. Just like I like you,

~Rain


	10. Ashley Bell

Disclaimer: Sigh. I don't kill main characters without reason or own the Avengers/Harry Potter.

* * *

**Ashley Bell**

* * *

The loud ding of the oven timer pierced the silence of the backroom.

"Ash, can you get that?" The shouted question came from the front of the coffee house. Her boss Teresa wasn't known for being particularly lazy though, so she must have been busy - or focused on a particularly nice looking costumer. Ash picked up a few refill canisters for the drink machine that she had come for and headed to the front. Absentmindedly the nineteen year old fiddled with her locket.

It was a gift from her parents before they died. It was one of the few memories that she had left of them. The doctors had said that the head trauma from the car crash had caused some amnesia. It left large swaths of blank spots in her memory. The memory of receiving the locket was one of the few that survived. She imagined that's why she always felt safer with it on.

The front of the coffeehouse looked exactly how you would expect a coffeehouse to look. The small circular tables littered the room. Too many chairs surrounded the tables and almost all of them wobbled when sat upon. There was the obligatory nook of four overstuffed armchairs that looked to have seen better days - despite the fact that Ash had been there when they were delivered brand new not even a half a year ago. There was a wireless router hidden in the back that allowed them to advertise free Wi-Fi which was becoming necessary for a coffeehouse to have nowadays.

The room was mostly empty. It was right before the lunch rush though so Ash was setting up for it like always. There were a few people scattered around though. There was two English majors huddled together in the nook. Alternatively clutching and whacking away on their laptops like it was their best friend and worst enemy - at times Ash thought she knew that exact feeling. There were a few others scattered around holding their coffee cups like they held the answers to all of the universes questions.

And just like she had suspected Teresa was in the corner of the room flirting with one of the costumers. The man in question was tucked away in a corner of the room -_body facing the door, back to wall, eye line of every possible avenue of attack... perfect, just what_ - and had a rather large duffle bag tucked beneath his seat. The man wasn't particularly large or small. In fact, he would have been practically invisible with his standard clothing except that Teresa flirting with him meant he had to be rather good looking.

Ash smirked a little as she restocked the beverage machine and headed to the oven. Teresa was one of the shallowest women she had ever met and she had the worst luck at picking out men. Ash glanced over her shoulder at the man again. Teresa was headed back behind the counter finally leaving him alone. His short brown hair and sunglasses that seemed fixed on her for just a second. He did seem familiar now that she thought about it.

_That's because you know him._

"Did you say something?" Ash asked Teresa.

"What?" The dark skinned woman looked surprised for a second and then shook her head. "No, but I was going to mention my hot date." She turned back around and pointed to the now empty corner. "Huh, that's odd, he was just there."

"So, who is he?" Ash asked and tried to ignore the words that she had been sure she heard.

"It was the weirdest thing. He just walked in here and sat down at that table over there. He was looking around very intensely until I walked over to him. He relaxed after I walked over though." She smiled smugly." We flirted, but after a few minutes he said he had just remembered something and had to go. " She giggled a little and Ash felt a faint sense of revulsion from deep within her. Chances were Teresa was doing the flirting and the guy got sick of it after awhile. "Are you listening?"

"Yes, of course." She looked at her boss for only a second before turning back to the counter. "I just remembered I needed to go do something. If you'll excuse me?"

Teresa nodded, but the stars in her eyes made Ash think she wasn't paying the slightest attention.

Ash sighed slightly and then went out the back door. The alley behind the coffeehouse was just as regular as the coffeehouse itself. Everything was slightly dank and there was a strange smell from the dumpster Ash didn't even notice anymore. It was a familiar friend and enemy because there was only ever one reason she came out here.

She leaned against the door and took a deep breath trying to still her shaking hands.

"I'm not crazy."

_Since you're the one talking to yourself I'm guessing you don't quite believe that._

"Shut up." Her shaking hands found their way to her pocket and the pills that had been hastily stuffed in there in the past week. She didn't want to take them, not really, but she never really had much of a choice.

_You don't want to do that._

"And why not? It's not like you are the most stable part of me to be listening to."

_I'm the only part you should be listening to. The one you've been ignoring these past two years. No matter how much I've screamed at you to pay attention. Believing someone else over yourself is foolishness._

"You are not me." She said furiously. The series of three pills she popped into her mouth she swallowed dry. She was more than used to the rough drag down her throat.

_You know they don't start working right away. So you might as well listen until then you stupid girl._

"No, I won't." She ran her shaking hands through her boy cut hair style. She had finally allowed her dark red roots to grow in after two years of dying it blond.

_Well, you should. Because you do know that man. He is dangerous and you should be prepared._

"You are just a figment of my imagination and you are making this up. That man is perfectly normal and you are just trying to get me not to shut you out. It won't work." She steadied her hands forcefully and then pulled open the door back to the coffeehouse.

_I could just kill that man!_

"The costumer?"

_No, the other one. The one who forced me here instead of out there. I will too. As soon as I see him again a knife will be stuck in his throat before he could even say hello._

"See, this is why I had to take the pills. Because walking around talking to the voice inside my head that wants to kill everyone isn't helping anything." The backroom was mostly empty except for a few boxes of materials. There was a small counter back here for preparing though. She pulled out one of the cutting boards.

_What else am I supposed to do. You live a dreadfully boring life. Imagining killing people is the most fun I get to have._

"Shut up already."

"Ash, who are you talking to...Wooh." Teresa had her hands up in surrender and Ash was more than confused for a second before she spotted the knife clenched in her palm that was pointed at Teresa. She quickly pulled it back in and stared at the betraying limb. "You okay?"

"Yeah, just someone on my mind." She forced out and placed the knife gingerly on the counter, a part of her screaming to pick it back up and defend herself. It was that same part that caused her trouble every morning when she didn't take her gun to work. The gun that she had only gotten because of that part. The very part that talked about killing people. "Say, don't you have a date later?"

"Later tonight. He's going to pick me up here after work. Isn't that just the sweetest?" The sickly sweet tone of Teresa's voice grated her ears.

"Yeah, sounds great." She rubbed her temples and tried not to feel a little bit lonely now that the voice was gone.

* * *

The day was beautiful and bright. People were smiling and the sun was shining and the sky was blue and all Ash wanted to do was to crash into her bed and stay there for the next decade. Ash hummed along to the Outcast song emanating from her new iPod earbuds and tried not to stumble over her own feet.

Her mind couldn't hold thoughts well when she was like this. Everything felt fluid and most things happening in the world slipped around Ash without her even noticing them. It was an effect of the pills. They made her feel rather disconnected from the world - floaty - whenever she took them. So she focused on the music and tried not to bump into anything until she got home.

The street that she was currently walking on was a few blocks down from the coffeehouse. It was in the wealthier part of the small town which she had lived her entire life in. Her apartment building was one of the nicer ones. The apartment itself had been left to her by her parents when they passed, along with veritable fortune. A fortune which she had barely even dented in the two years since their death.

She could have moved anywhere in the world and lived comfortably if she had desired to, but something always held her back. She had wanted to go travelling, but every time she packed bags or bought a ticket something caused her to have to stay. The coffeehouse job was mostly just to keep busy, she had never needed the money.

Of course, the job had never really felt quite right, like she was meant to be doing something else, but those feelings mostly disappeared whenever she took her medicine - along with most other feelings and the ability to walk straight.

She waved tiredly at one of the passersby, a neighbor named Trevor, and semi-crashed into the doors to her building. She took a minute to greet the receptionist and head up the stairs.

Her apartment was the penthouse and took up the entire top floor of the six story building, but despite the long walk she preferred the stairs to the elevator - it always made her feel too confined and vulnerable to her. She arrived in front of her door without any trouble and got out her keys. By this time the iPod had switched from the fun beats of Outcast to the slower melodies of Coldplay.

She tugged the buds from her ears with one hand and opened the door with the other. She dropped her keys and iPod in the small disk next to the door along with her bag and headed to the kitchen. Her pills always made her thirsty and a few hours running around servicing Teresa's every whim made her annoyed even through the haze that the pills put her in. She bumped into a table on the way to the kitchen and let out a small curse.

It took a few minutes of stumbling around the kitchen to get her cup of water and then start the unreasonably long trek to her room.

She didn't get there.

In fact, she stopped about midway into the living room because there was a man sitting on her chair that she was fairly certain hadn't been there when she left.

The glass slipped from her fingers and crashed to the floor, water splashing everywhere.

"Hello again." It was the man from the coffeehouse this morning. Ash had a headache.

"I-I-I..." Ash trailed off and looked backwards towards the door.

"No, I don't think so." The man was smiling at her. His spread of white teeth did nothing to distract from the gun in his hand. He looked down at it almost distastefully. "Not exactly my weapon of choice, but it gets the job done."

"I..." She swallowed drily. "I don't know you."

The man raised an eyebrow and smiled at her. "Well, you are still an amazing liar."

"I d-don't know you. I swear." Her head was throbbing, pounding that sounded like someone hitting a door. "Y-you've got the wrong girl." Her voice trembled and her hands shook.

"Oh, really?" He flicked his gun down to the coffee table where a spread of pictures were laid out. She took a step forward to look that the photos without even thinking about it. There was a girl in them, younger than Ash.

"It's not me." It couldn't be because there was one that had obviously been taken in France and Ash had never been out of the country let alone to the Eiffel Tower. She ignored the image that popped into her head - a dead body on a grated floor, Eiffel Tower in the background - because it wasn't right, it never was.

"The gig is up. Technology nowadays is getting so cool isn't it?" He picked up a folder from beside him and threw it on the table. The tag had her name on it.

She didn't pick it up. Her entire body was telling her to flee as fast as she could.

For once she listened to her instincts.

Her hand was grabbing the biggest nearby object and throwing it before she was even thinking about it.

Her body turned around quicker than it had ever done before a complete 180 in less than a second.

And then it failed her.

She had barely taken a step towards the door before she was crashing into the ground - foot tugging on the rug that tripped her - she cursed her pills.

She didn't have much time to do more than that before a body was on top of her, one hand pushing on her back and the other grabbing a wrist.

She didn't think, she reacted. Her body twisted on the ground fluidly. Her legs curled around the back of the man's legs and she pulled forward.

The man twisted her still caught wrist till it was screaming at her and fell on top of her.

The dead body weight didn't stop her. Her fingers dug into the man right beneath his shoulder blade pressing into a small knot of muscles that had the man grunting and turning to the side. She used that to push herself off the ground and wrap her legs around his body and spin.

She was on top of him. Her wrist was still in his hand. She dove her free fingers into the man's wrist trying to make his grip break.

The man bucked and turned. His body momentum was twisting - he was heavier than her - it forced her to move with him.

They were rolling on the floor switching positions of power every few seconds.

The cold steel of a blade touched her navel.

She froze and allowed her body to be forced to the ground again - it had been a distraction.

"I just want to talk. Though this has been a fond trip down memory lane we have business to attend to." The man stood up and held out his hand to her. Ash was confused.

"I don't know you." The pounding was back - stronger. "I'm just a teenager from a small town who works at a coffeehouse."

The man laughed. "Come on. You can drop it now Widow."

"I've never been married." Ash rubbed her temple absentmindedly, it didn't help.

The man's hand dropped and he stared at her now. His gaze was calculating. His eyes ran the length of her body, but it didn't seem sexual in anyway. "What's your name?"

"Ashley Bell." She answered as truthfully as she could. His eyes widened.

"Sit down." He gestured to the couch closest to the coffee table. His eyes never left her as he sat down across from her in the same seat as before. His hand dug into the large duffel he had beside him and pulled out a radio. It took him less than a second to flip it on. "We've got a problem." He spoke evenly and quickly into it and then turned off the radio and put it back in his back. "Who were you parents?" This seemed pointed at her so she answered.

"Robert and Joni Bell. I grew up here. They died in a car accident two years ago." The words spilled from her mouth - rehearsed.

"Wrong." The sharp word hit her like a blow.

"No, it's not." She shook her head, and then figured out how bad an idea that was as her head burst in agony. "I am Ashley Bell, I work at a coffeehouse. My manager is Teresa Helbert."

"Wrong. Who's your therapist?"

Ash was taken aback at the question. "Molly Grisom, we meet every week at Brisban Hospital."

"No, you don't." The man stared at her apathetically. "Pick up the folder." He motioned to the deceptively innocent brown folder on the table. She didn't pick it up, every cell in her body was screaming at her, her head was committing mutiny.

"No." Her eyes moved to stare him in the face. He looked amused for a second before he schooled himself. "Who are you?" She didn't want to know the answer, but the question escaped from her before she could stop it.

"My name is Agent Clint Barton, though you probably know me better by another name." He motioned again to the folder. "Pick it up strawberry, we're not going anywhere until you do."

A smidgeon of rage escaped from her. She glared at him and picked up the folder. She put it in her lap closed. "What name do I know you by?"

He shook his head. "You already know the answer to that question. How did you know how to attack me earlier?"

"I took years of self defense as a kid." The answer appeared in her head without her having to go look for it.

The man smirked. "True in a way, strawberry, but not the way you are thinking." Barton's blue eyes stared into hers. "Where did you get that scar?" He pointed to the one on her lower forearm.

"I-it was a swimming - "

"No. Where did you get that locket?" He stared at the necklace that she had been fiddling with in her hands without even noticing it.

"M-M-My par-"

"No." He shook his head and sighed a little. "We don't have much time left Ash before the cavalry bust in and make you a new science project and believe me when I say they like their science projects. I don't want to hurt you, even though that's what I was sent here for in the first place." He shrugged. "We were never really close, but I always knew how skilled you were. I want to recruit you." Ash's eyes widened in surprise. "I'm sure that's why the director sent me rather than anyone else. You've been off the field of play for a while and we could always use a secret ace. Especially considering your old partner."

"I don't ha-ave an old partner." She told herself as much as him. Neither were convinced.

He shrugged again. "Open the folder."

"Why?" She snapped at him. Her entire body was tense, her head was never ending waves of pain.

"Because you know you want to? Because the spider I knew would never turn down free knowledge."

_Spider?_

Ash's eyes moved downward without her volition. Her name was on the tag of the folder along with one other name.

Black Widow.

Her head seemed to split open and though she heard a crack she wasn't entirely positive she wasn't just imagining it.

The pain was gone.

The only thing that remained was rage.

* * *

The dark-skinned woman stop on the edge of the darkened train platform. Two large bags were placed at her feet. A cigarette dangled in her lips and she stood silently. Her head was bowed slightly looking at the phone in her hands like it had somehow betrayed her.

She took a deep drag of the cigarette and then released it slowly.

There was no more putting it off.

She pressed the green call button and raised the phone to her ear.

It rang only two times.

"They've found her." The woman pulled the cigarette from her lips with shaking hands. It wasn't a cold night.

The silence on the other end lasted for a minute. "You didn't get her out?" The apathetic tone caused her to flinch slightly.

"I barely got out myself. There were truckloads of the guys hanging out on all the roads out of town." Silence. "I tried alright? She snuck away from me to go home early." Silence. "It was one of the ones you knew. I recognized him from the picture you gave me. His name was Hawkeye." She took another drag. "I'm sorry. I tried."

"Your services will no longer be required."

"We good?" The silence on the other end caused her heart to bounce in her chest. "Basilisk, we're good right? I did this for two years, it was longer than either of us thought possible." Her shaking caused the cigarette to drop from her hand. "Please, I did what I could." The begging slipped from her unbidden.

"That will be all, Teresa." Click.

Teresa's hand's steadied a bit and she took a deep breath. She gripped the phone tighter and then with all the strength she could muster she threw it away from her.

She picked up her two bags, made her way into the bus station, and disappeared.

* * *

AN: So, a lot of people were angry at me. Maybe some of you still are. Sorry about that - except not really. It was always part of the plan. A plan that I do have. Some people were threatening to drop the story from the last chapter. I hope this made you think better of me. If not, that's cool too. I'm not the best writer on this site or even in this particular Harry Potter/Avengers crossover section. I'm okay, though... I hope.

Anyway, hope you liked it. As always if you spot any grievous spelling or grammatical errors please point them out to me. There are always some.

Thanks,

~Rain


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